•0^ s*- 
 
 
 
 
 
 
THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
THE MENACE 
 OF JAPAN 
 
 BY 
 
 FREDERICK McCORMICK 
 
 N ON- REFER ? 
 
 ^WVAD-aBS 
 
 BOSTON 
 
 LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY 
 
 1917 
 
jiSE^y 
 
 Copyright, 1917, 
 Bt Frederick McCormick. 
 
 All rights reserved 
 Published, March, 1917 
 
 
 MAR 29 1917 
 
 WorftiooB ^wss 
 
 Set up and electrotyped by J. S. Gushing Co., Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. 
 
 Presswork by S. J. Parkhill & Co., Boston, Mass., U.S.A. 
 
 3)GI.A460094 
 
FOREWORD 
 
 Many historical facts are common property but owe 
 their preservation and value to writers who never re- 
 ceived their reward. In living sixteen years with events 
 and dates underlying this book, I have lost the respec- 
 tive identities of some of their recorders. But I am 
 glad that I remember them in their anonymous being, 
 with gratitude. 
 
 Many things contained herein, so far as I know, have 
 had no other chronicler than I. They cannot be pub- 
 licly ascribed to their sources, many of which are official 
 and confidential : they touch too closely living issues 
 animating and breeding war. Many are simply extracts 
 from my own journals and private records. All are 
 confidently submitted to the public in the day's work 
 in connection with America in the Pacific — " the great- 
 est problem in the world." 
 
 In saying farewell to the following pages ere they 
 are beyond recall in the printed book, I take pleasure 
 in thanking American editors and in particular those 
 of Century^ Scribner's, Outlook, the New York Times, 
 and the Forum, for the intense interest they have taken 
 
vi FOREWORD 
 
 in the phases of the theme, as I have seen it, that 
 "will be finally determined by war", and their courte- 
 ous permission to reproduce certain passages herein. 
 
 FKEDERICK McCORMICK. 
 
 Santa Monica, 
 
 December 1, 1916. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 Foreword v 
 
 I "Predatory Packs" 1 
 
 n War Loans . . . . . . . .16 
 
 TTT Westward to the Atlantic 39 
 
 IV Rally of Arms 48 
 
 V First Line of Defense 57 
 
 VI Second Line of Defense 88 
 
 VII Third Line of Defense 122 
 
 VIII Russia and Japan 144 
 
 IX Russia and America 156 
 
 X Political Secrets 172 
 
 XI Japan's First Victory 186 
 
 Xn America's Retreat 192 
 
 Xm China's Turn . . . - . . . .203 
 
 XTV Getting Rid of the United States . . . 226 
 
 XV Defeat in the Pacific 242 
 
 XVI Recession 270 
 
 XVII Back to the Ships . . . . . .291 
 
 XVIII Blows from Japan 310 
 
 XIX Back to the Guns 336 
 
 Index 355 
 
THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 "Predatory Packs" 
 
 Sufficient time has elapsed since Japan's plans 
 for leadership in East Asia and the Pacific were un- 
 covered, and enough water has run under the bridge, 
 to allow of a glance at the back of the stage, a look 
 at the levers and cogs, the cranks, pulleys, rods, and 
 wires of the mechanism called the problem of the 
 Pacific. 
 
 That problem for America is rising from old battle- 
 grounds, and is covered with the debris of our vivid 
 and bitterly remembered first conflict with Japan — 
 that following Japan's reckoning with Russia. 
 
 Our attempt to set up our rights of the Open Door, 
 1908-1910, was of greater consequence in the Pacific 
 than Japan's war upon Germany which succeeded it 
 there in 1914. In duration its struggle was longer 
 than was Russia's pass at arms which preceded it; 
 and though confined to diplomacy its revelations and 
 consequences make it the most important event to 
 us since we hung the ermine curtain of the Portsmouth 
 Treaty across the battlefields of two empires and the 
 China Sea. For out of that first conflict emerged the 
 
 1 
 
2 THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 trunk and limbs of a second, which in less than three 
 years paralyzed the political and diplomatic service 
 of the United States in East Asia and showed in its 
 lineaments a resemblance which can be likened only 
 to that of Mars. 
 
 Owing to the collapse of our Government and polit- 
 ical institutions in Pacific affairs, the diplomatic 
 post at Tokio which McKinley, Roosevelt, Taft, and 
 many others found to be the most important to us in 
 the world, has been vacant, so far as diplomacy and 
 constructive relations are concerned, since 1906. The 
 post at Peking, since it was filled by Rockhill, has 
 been one of fruitless humiliation and trial to successors 
 under the insults applied to us there by nations who 
 discount our national policies and resent our diplomatic 
 practices, while Congress, sensibly breaking down 
 under the Philippines question, in 1915 reached a 
 state of collapse, showing we had practically thrown 
 up the sponge throughout the Pacific. 
 
 The diplomatic missions to Japan and China there- 
 fore became a menace as they were a weakness in our 
 Pacific front. The situation of the United States 
 in foreign affairs was shameful. The Government, 
 in the Pacific, flung away its merchant marine which 
 begged among rivals for a buyer, finding a billet at 
 last only in the Atlantic by chance through the provi- 
 dential (!) existence of a war trade. The wrenching 
 and deadening power of that blow, delivered through a 
 single shipping bill, — the LaFoUette-Furuseth Sea- 
 man's Act, — may be understood from this fact : that 
 the Pacific Mail Steamship Company which was our 
 only America-to-Asia line, first tried to save its world- 
 wide organization and trade by transfer to Vancouver, 
 — a plan abandoned by the owners through fear that 
 
"PREDATORY PACKS" 3 
 
 the Government would persecute them afterward 
 for seeking protection from a foreign flag, — and then 
 in Wall Street hawked its fleet of Pacific liners, which 
 in one month in the munitions trade paid for their 
 purchase, first for six and one half millions, then six, 
 then five and one half, then five and one quarter — 
 "and sold." 
 
 The Pacific was not only at a blow cleared of mer- 
 chant marine transports and of shipping communi- 
 cations with our Pacific outposts and the Asiatic 
 seaboard, but the war drained it of war vessels, the 
 Panama Canal filled up at Culebra, and we had only 
 a mosquito squadron in the Pacific as a military side 
 show of the San Diego Exposition. At the instant we 
 had to pay four times the normal freight rates to get 
 our latest coast defense guns to Honolulu, and had 
 no bottoms for munitions beyond Honolulu to supple- 
 ment the navy and succor the outlying possessions of 
 Guam and the Philippines. 
 
 The administration at , Washington was then struck 
 by the European war-storm as with its hurricane 
 legislation it had come down upon our merchant 
 marine. And it is conjuring up but a tame simile 
 to say that the American ship of state trembled and 
 reeled under its working. 
 
 The Government which was to deal with the greatest 
 foreign questions and ulterior dangers in history, or 
 perhaps since the ravages of the Mongols, was found 
 out to be one of the most provincial we ever had : 
 cut to fit its narrow congressional habit of domestic 
 politics, whose parish tailors had taken no account of 
 necessary international movement and diplomatic ex- 
 pansion, to say nothing of the heroic action of govern- 
 ment, indispensable to honor and national safety which 
 
4 THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 it never was able to essay. Although the outrages to 
 American rights in this crisis were admittedly unpar- 
 alleled in all the relations of friendly or hostile nations, 
 the Government, like the nation, limped on with its 
 domestic squabbles while being periodically stunned 
 from the direction of our left flank on the alien Pacific, 
 by the mysterious chaos of guerilla revolution in Mexico, 
 and seemingly dazed by a hundred incomprehensible 
 events hostile to our rights and interests in the Pacific 
 area. 
 
 The very first act of the Government in its new 
 policy, as I will show, was to erase the Pacific from its 
 administrative map. Its attitude toward the world 
 without, which like a volcano or a tidal wave was 
 ready to envelop all nations with sulphur and suffoca- 
 tion, and its concept of national interests beyond the 
 three-mile limit, was disclosed. The plans of the 
 party leaders of the administration in charge of the 
 government, for a four years' program exclusively of 
 home issues and home politics, on which to stand or 
 fall at the next election, could not be concealed. On 
 the contrary it was shortly confirmed by the conduct 
 of the affairs of the Atlantic which were of too danger- 
 ous a nature to be cleared from the council table, or 
 erased from the administration blackboard by figures 
 of rhetoric such as I have quoted, and which it was 
 found the administration had made no provisions to 
 handle. As the sinister cloud of world complications, 
 unprepared for, uncomprehended, and unimagined, 
 rolled in upon the Capital, the Cabinet began to dis- 
 solve. It had not contemplated the world. It had 
 not thought of sanguinary things. The Secretaryship 
 of State — the office of offices — was abandoned. 
 John Bassett Moore, best known in the world of 
 
"PREDATORY PACKS" 5 
 
 our authorities on international relations, resigned. 
 William J. Bryan resigned. After eighteen months. 
 Hell had flamed out in the Atlantic, long to dazzle the 
 volunteer political firemen of the cabinet-room in the 
 White House, and in the committee-rooms on Capitol 
 Hill, to the complete screening away and exclusion of 
 the Pacific. 
 
 It requires no imagination to see with what terror 
 such a government, under these circumstances, was 
 struck at the spectacle of Japan, better armed, again 
 abroad on the Pacific warpath. Speaking through the 
 State Department it demanded : 
 
 "What would you have us do.f* Do you want us 
 humiliated by what will happen to us if we protest in 
 China and the Pacific .f^" 
 
 Our failure in foreign affairs was complete. Every- 
 body seemed to be for himself. Sauve qui peut defined 
 our diplomatic situation : the administration for itself ; 
 trade, ships, and even national defense, for themselves. 
 One of our ablest admirals, Fiske, resigned and then 
 the strongest member of the Cabinet, Garrison, the 
 Secretary of War, resigned. The American sponge 
 seemed to hit the ceiling of the world's international 
 habitation when one chamber of Congress passed a bill 
 for abandoning the Philippines. The dSbacle seemed 
 ready to complete itself when, fortunately, the ap- 
 proach of the presidential campaign, combined with 
 the lurid lessons of the World War as exemplified by 
 Germany in the Atlantic, and by Japan in East Asia 
 and the Pacific, seemed to restore to the nation a degree 
 of sanity that had been absent since 1910. 
 
 The prevailing administration was disillusioned, 
 but cowed by the effect of the European War upon the 
 Atlantic and Pacific alike, by Japan's rearrangement 
 
6 THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 of East Asia to broader foundations for her Pacific 
 policy, and by the shift which she was making. The 
 Pacific, dreaded and tabooed in Washington, reached 
 the status of the next great world issue. Events there 
 that had moved farther since the Portsmouth Treaty 
 than for twenty centuries before, made China one of 
 the great issues of the World War. She was slated, 
 along with the United States, as one of the two greatest 
 storehouses of natural resources and treasuries of 
 wealth, to pay the war debts of Europe. 
 
 When the pressure for armament and defense 
 came, the questions of the Pacific, unobserved, had 
 gathered like the wolves of the Russian steppes and 
 were licking the heels of truce in the Atlantic. They 
 were waiting upon the shores of the whole Pacific for 
 their sponsors, the Asiatic and European nations of 
 the World War, to follow them, and help them to their 
 quarry. 
 
 Now came the presidential campaign. It was a con- 
 firmation of the lurking danger of our collective stupe- 
 faction and national self-gratification over our place in 
 a world of fire and brimstone. And it turned out to be 
 a relapse from our belated awakening, and a revelation 
 of the state of thought with which we must meet the 
 question of the Pacific. Among great issues existing to 
 inspire hope and fear for the future of the United States, 
 as authoritatively expressed for the people by their 
 leaders in carrying on the succession to the presidency, 
 those of the Pacific were excluded. From the opening 
 of the campaign by Elihu Root early in the year, the 
 Pacific, as a prospect before the Great Republic, ever 
 turning westward, was ignored as by common consent. 
 Limned from the Pacific Slope, where is the acutest and 
 most formidable race problem in the world, and where 
 
"PREDATORY PACKS'* 7 
 
 our country on one entire front endures a perpetual 
 outlook upon the theater of the future greatest world 
 and national affairs, the wide horizon of party discus- 
 sion nowhere touched the Pacific Ocean. Though heard 
 within sound of its surf, a great address by Charles E. 
 Hughes at Los Angeles, August 22, 1916, in opposition 
 to the Government, by only two references derogatory 
 of China indicated the slightest suspicion of conscious- 
 ness among the opponents of the Government, of Asia 
 at our door, or of the Pacific eighteen miles away : one 
 when he said that after the World War we would have 
 no friends among nations save China, and one when, in 
 a passing phrase, he reckoned China negligible in the 
 scale of large civilized nations. "There will emerge 
 from that war," said he, "a new Europe which must be 
 met by a new America" — and there stopped. Yet it 
 is worth noting that in the Pacific, Mr. Hughes found 
 the only friend in all the world which we would have 
 after the World War — China. 
 
 Very nearly that time, behind closed doors in Con- 
 gress, the senators from the Pacific Coast States were 
 urging the necessity of dealing with the Japanese ques- 
 tion so as to settle it for all time. A new Europe must 
 be met, but it is not more inevitable than a new Asia. 
 And our first meeting is with Asia. Any Congress 
 which elects to settle the Japanese question is under- 
 taking every kind of known and unknown problem of 
 empire possible to six thousand miles of American 
 frontier on alien peoples and civilizations and hostile 
 nations, to say nothing of foreign parts. Though no 
 question of our times, in importance, could vie with 
 that of the contact of alien races and systems on the 
 Pacific Slope and in the whole Pacific area, the osten- 
 sible spokesmen of awakened America could not once 
 
8 THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 mention Japan, Asia, or the unmatched Pacific. The 
 opponent of the Government also dare not whistle, in 
 the Pacific, dogs that sleeplessly rove and scour the 
 lands and waters of the Pacific area in the interests of 
 Asia and the Allied Powers. 
 
 These lights are not only beacons of current national 
 life and sense, in the United States. They define what 
 obviously will be the national policy at least until 1921, 
 and what will be the thought generally of the people of 
 the United States for a considerable time to come; 
 when attention shall have to be directed by foreign 
 force to the country's international situation in the 
 region of its great frontier on an alien and hostile world, 
 the Pacific, and at a time when the greatest interna- 
 tional and diplomatic questions ever faced must be met 
 by the United States. "Predatory nations, like preda- 
 tory animals," said Senator Chamberlain, "travel in 
 packs." The marine and the submarine motor testify 
 that they travel far. They have reached the Pacific, 
 in packs, and the same enginery with which they re- 
 mold Europe and the Atlantic will be exerted in the 
 recasting of East Asia and the Pacific. And it will fol- 
 low the work already begun by Japan. The question 
 for us is whether the predatory packs of Europe and 
 Asia are not already upon our backs. 
 
 Predatory nations reached East Asia a long time 
 ago. But they came "traveling in packs" only in 
 1900, when Germany reached China to be their leader, 
 to "assume command of the punitive and clearing 
 operations" of the allied powers. Then the Prussian 
 war machine came, with Emperor William's command, 
 to make the German name a terror to the Chinese for 
 ages to come. China was made the scene of Europe's 
 retaliation upon Asia, as Europe had been the scene 
 
"PREDATORY PACKS" 9 
 
 of the scourging which Asia gave Europe in the Mongol 
 overjflow. In other words, Europe was to thrust Asia 
 in upon itself, throw it back from the West, drive it 
 into the eastward sea, over against the Pacific. 
 
 The 1900 pick of the Prussian military machine, — ten 
 thousand men, the hurled vengeance of the Kaiser, with 
 Marshal Count Von Waldersee at their head, — arrived 
 at Tientsin from Europe in September. The interreg- 
 num between the raising of the Siege of the Legations, 
 August 14, and Von Waldersee's arrival, was described 
 by the historians of the great German East Asiatic 
 Expedition as one of supreme doubt and chaos among 
 the foreign military forces and residents, some of 
 whom recommended going into winter quarters behind 
 barricades "in the Forbidden City." The modern 
 German Army that is mainly fighting the World War 
 then had its great opportunity, its first and only mili- 
 tary try-out, before beginning the assault on Europe. 
 
 Von Waldersee established headquarters in Peking, 
 in the Hsi Yuan or Western Park, in the Empress 
 Grand Dowager's "Winter Palace" — the spot where, 
 in a subsequent modern building, Yuan Shih-k'ai, the 
 President of China, died. Here an agreement was 
 drawn up with Li Hung-chang, the refugee Chinese 
 Court's vice-regent, that Chihli province lying within 
 the Great Wall on the north, the sea on the east. 
 Shantung on the south, and Shansi on the west, should 
 be given over to the control and policing of the allied 
 powers. With their cooperation or acquiescence this 
 region was apportioned to the various foreign military 
 contingents, "but owing to the withdrawal, in October, 
 of most of the Russian forces, half the Japanese, and 
 all the American, combined with the decision of the 
 British to assume a passive role in the subsequent 
 
10 THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 operations, it fell chiefly to the French and Germans 
 to put this arrangement into effect." 
 
 The French in rapid movements relieved four im- 
 portant centers in South Chihli where foreigners and 
 Christians were besieged and harassed by Boxers. 
 Their work was highly important in its pacificatory 
 results, the work of the Germans in its destructive 
 effects. The appearance of the German forces, clothed 
 in bulky gray-brown winter overcoats and seen in 
 swiftly moving masses on the plains of Chihli, power- 
 fully suggested the roving goat and sheepskin clad 
 contingents of Genghis Khan which they were under 
 orders to imitate. 
 
 From Peking, Von Waldersee sent an expedition 
 northward under Count Yorck, assisted by Italians 
 and small detachments of British Indian and Austrian 
 troops. Going to Kalgan by the route of the present 
 Chinese railway, it returned, bringing the body of 
 Count Yorck, who had died at night from charcoal 
 fumes emitted by a Chinese coal-ball stove. And in a 
 fire which destroyed the "Winter Palace", in which 
 Von Waldersee had his headquarters, the latter's Chief 
 of Staff, General Schwartzhoff, one of the most promis- 
 ing oflScers of the Prussian Army, lost his life. 
 
 From "the angle of the Great Wall" north of Peking, 
 southward, the Prussian punitive army of ten thou- 
 sand, in ten principal drives upon Chinese camps, 
 cleared Western Chihli of Chinese troops. It had 
 made a secondary headquarters at the provincial 
 capitol, Paoting-fu, after the withdrawal of the British 
 and Italians, and in an agreement divided Western 
 and Southern Chihli between themselves and the 
 French. It made no distinction between Boxers and 
 regular Chinese troops, against whom it executed a 
 
"PREDATORY PACKS" 11 
 
 uniform plan of campaign to make Germany remem- 
 bered with terror, and so inflicted as much loss as 
 possible upon all armed men alike. 
 
 The last drive of the great Prussian punitive expedi- 
 tion to East Asia was planned in cooperation with the 
 French, in the latter's sphere in Chihli, where the 
 French had come in conflict with bodies of Chinese 
 troops. And there, thirteen years before Germany 
 assaulted Europe, along a spur of the Great Wall, 
 was enacted not only a destructive blow against the 
 principal defense army of the Chinese throne, about 
 forty thousand men under Liu Kuan-ts'ai, but a little 
 dash on Paris, that set Frenchmen by the ears. 
 
 April, 1901, while the Congress of Peking sat in 
 council on these things and waited, Stephen Pichon, 
 later French Minister of Foreign Affairs, etc., etc., 
 and much quoted by the world's press, having been a 
 journalist, went back up Legation Street to his study, 
 wrote out and handed to me a necessary and useful 
 authorization to proceed to the French forces under 
 General Bailloud, which were cooperating with the 
 Germans. 
 
 We had a march of a hundred miles ; transportation 
 means were scarce, and I found myself afoot, first with 
 the blue, then with the drab. Bailloud took the lower, 
 ancient, Peking-Turkestan road, to occupy Kukuan 
 Pass, while General Von Ketteler, with the German 
 column, turned sharp west to take the nearer five 
 small passes. The purpose of the expedition was 
 simply to drive the remaining Chinese troops over the 
 Chihli boundary into Shansi, with contributory Ger- 
 man retribution. 
 
 At Ping-shan Von Ketteler learned that Bailloud 
 had already reached Kukuan but that he would not 
 
n THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 precipitate an attack before the Germans reached the 
 passes farther north. But the Germans distrusted 
 the French who had previously anticipated Von Wal- 
 dersee and the German troops in getting to the pro- 
 vincial capital. 
 
 Seeing Von Ketteler was going to do something, and 
 not being regularly attached to Bailloud, I joined the 
 former. He had almost no transport, his column 
 moved at a snail's pace, until close enough to Shansi 
 to dash for the refugee Chinese Imperial Court's rear- 
 guard forces. 
 
 The German forces split into five separate columns 
 and dashed. Clearing the summits of the passes, after 
 sharp fighting, the Germans marched over the debris 
 of the Chinese defense on to the Shansi tableland. 
 
 At the last moment, in Peking, Pichon had secured 
 sanction from Paris for cessation of French initiative 
 in hostile action against the Chinese, and General 
 Bailloud, on receipt of these orders, sent messengers 
 to the Chinese at Kukuan asking them to withdraw. 
 The Chinese returned insulting defiances, and the 
 French were in a position to advance, when Von Ket- 
 teler's left, under Lieutenant-Colonel Von Wallmenich, 
 leaving some scores of Chinese dead, its own dead and 
 wounded, at Niang-tse-kuan, took Kukuan in the rear, 
 and marching through on the other side, to Jukuan, 
 Von Wallmenich appeared like an apparition, offering 
 his troops to General Bailloud, whom he had not 
 allowed time to come up ! Bailloud thanked Von 
 Wallmenich with a face which the Chinese said was 
 "disgust-black!" It was opera bouffe, but it was 
 houffe in which Paris fell. 
 
 This affair marked the culmination of a heated in- 
 ternational military discussion and rivalry during the 
 
"PREDATORY PACKS" 13 
 
 foreign occupation of North China and military domi- 
 nation of East Asia. It was the largest of the punitive 
 expeditions in Chihli. The discussion of the relative 
 merits of the international troops had as its chief con- 
 tention the spirit of aggression, the endurance, and 
 the mobility of the German military, which had come 
 to East Asia without bringing means to transport itself 
 on land. The British military, and the Russian and 
 French, were as keen to German audacity and preten- 
 sion as if the World War alliance had already been 
 made. So were the Japanese. Their own and the 
 British troops were as alert to the military points of 
 the Russian cavalry as though the Russian-Japanese 
 War and the campaign in Mesopotamia were mapped 
 out. All the powers of the world were represented at 
 Peking in a military conclave that influenced in a 
 powerful way the events of the world since then. 
 Only the Americans refused to cooperate under Prus- 
 sian direction in this scourging of East Asia, and escaped 
 the mesh of World War when it came. 
 
 Three years later the journalists and military at- 
 taches of 1900 met on the battlefields of Manchuria. 
 The lessons of the Russian-Japanese War were dis- 
 cussed exclusively with reference to Europe. The 
 "next war" was a proximate reality. 
 
 The Austrian was then, on our battlefields in Man- 
 churia, called the most highly developed military 
 organization in the world. The German was not dis- 
 credited, only what respected it "went without say- 
 ing." The Bulgars were ranked with the highest. 
 Only Turkey was slighted — and merely by silence. 
 France was at the pinnacle of efficiency but declining 
 numerically. England couldn't gain. 
 
 It was a confirmation of the prophetic gathering of 
 
14 THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 the nations around the Pacific that the fate of Europe 
 had its first full military discussion there, and because 
 of it, in the war bureaus of Europe and the world. In 
 the plain along the Chihli Gulf and the Sea of Japan 
 the World War was proximately realized. Those 
 countries that were to engage in it had their foremost 
 General Staff experts with the Japanese and Russian 
 armies. The Russian cavalry was a subject of the 
 greatest German- Austrian interest. The ability of the 
 Japanese to handle East Asia in future was not a 
 keener question than the weight of Russia on the Aus- 
 trian-German frontier in the decade to come. 
 
 At that time France had concluded the last details 
 of her plan of defense against Germany — down to 
 the question of the correspondents, and the press, 
 which was to have no existence once war broke, as it 
 had not, except as sanctioned by the censor and en- 
 dowed with an ex-French life from the English allied 
 armies sharing its soil. 
 
 No wonder Germany was so fiercely against Eng- 
 land in the World War. France had made all final 
 arrangements, as for the execution ground. The 
 reason, often voiced, as Ludovic Neaudeau, Redacteur 
 du Journal (Paris), told me in Manchuria, 1904, was 
 that, so far as France was concerned, there would be 
 but "this war." The unerring apprehension of the 
 French and their temper was shown by the declaration 
 that France must win or die ; she could have no future 
 if she lost : France was a country advanced in civiliza- 
 tion and opposed by savages. 
 
 Pichon of Peking came later to Paris, and in a letter 
 to a London newspaper told the English that the 
 World War was "all the outcome of long and pre- 
 meditated preparation. . . . The plan that is now 
 
"PREDATORY PACKS" 15 
 
 being carried out before our eyes was conceived long 
 ago . . , it was understood we were to be overwhelmed 
 under the weight of Germany's land army, equipped 
 with artillery against which resistance would be im- 
 possible. It was equally arranged that our towns 
 and villages should be blackmailed, looted, razed to 
 the ground, and their inhabitants treated like noxious 
 animals. It was understood that in no war, not even 
 the Thirty Years' War, were human laws and con- 
 ventions to be so completely set aside." That was 
 exactly as in China. And the determining factors 
 were drawn from the open military book of East Asia 
 — the first time and the first occasion of the opening 
 of the book of modern warfare. 
 
 One of the sequels to us of the events of this period 
 in East Asia, and of the international affiliations which 
 were the result of its affairs, and which directed the 
 alliance that not only controlled the development of 
 China but resisted the central powers, was that Pichon 
 proposed to us an alliance with France and England 
 to save free government, and the freedom of the world, 
 from destruction. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 War Loans 
 
 I GIVE these reminiscences of the powers of Europe 
 as they were manifest in East Asia the first five years 
 of the modern military age, to show the importance of 
 the affairs on our west to the largest and most powerful 
 nations of the world, and those of to-day and to-morrow. 
 
 Frenchmen knew, as early as the first Franco- 
 Russian Alliance and when President Loubet went to 
 Russia, as attaches who accompanied him have told 
 me, the fate held out to them — that when war broke 
 out it would bring France's last chance, that she would 
 be in the balance with the little countries. And they 
 hurried to Manchuria and the Pacific in those years 
 of revelation, to decipher the laws of fate. 
 
 East Asia under the code of arms, 1900-1905, fur- 
 nished lessons to German military science which gave 
 confidence to Germany's rulers and led them to divide 
 the world between themselves and their friends. 
 
 The results brought about by the Prussian military 
 system, as practiced by the Japanese Army, were 
 hardly expressed in the form finally given them by the 
 Portsmouth Treaty, when Germany's world politicians 
 made a re-allotment of the territories of Europe and 
 parts of Asia, Africa, and other regions of the earth. 
 To this my German colleagues in Manchuria testified, 
 
 16 
 
WAR LOANS 17 
 
 on the western shores of the Pacific, and in other parts 
 of the world while its battles were being fought, or 
 when their lessons were having their effect in Europe. 
 
 There have been numbers of informed Germans who 
 have told the naked Prussian truth regarding Prus- 
 sian designs upon civilization — Count Reventlow for 
 instance, generally gagged in recent years, when crisis 
 threatened. He was one of the most fruitful sources 
 of the naked truth of which Germans showed them- 
 selves fearless, if not reckless. But to make free 
 generally with the names of informed Prussian and 
 German gentlemen, whose personal situations it is not 
 possible to know and judge from the outside, would 
 not be discreet or valorous. Those whom I quote 
 were highly placed on earth at the time; some have 
 gone down, and some have risen since. The years 
 since 1905, not to say since August 1, 1914, have made 
 a change in their world as well as that of the allies, 
 and some of them are among those myriad wraiths 
 who float between the worlds and find no rest. One 
 now living or dead, who need not be named here, said : 
 
 *'To dictate the future of Europe we must reach to 
 Paris within thirty days from the moment of crossing 
 the French border. This preparation is the diflSculty ; 
 there will not be a moment's rest for us until the button 
 is pressed for war, and the machinery set in motion. 
 As we say in Germany : it is not until the button is 
 pressed that we can relax. When it is, we can lie 
 down and rest. The machinery will run itself once it 
 starts." 
 
 There was the lesson of China and Manchuria, 
 learned. I believe the same thing could be had from 
 Austria, certainly from Russia, who adopted the Prus- 
 sian military system which had proved so successful 
 
18 THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 among the Japanese immediately after her war with 
 Japan. 
 
 Such international incidents as Captain DuMaurier's 
 play, "An Englishman's Home", and the spy scares 
 in England and Germany, show how fast "the war" 
 was being hurried on after that. In 1905, by winter- 
 time, the lessons of Manchuria were pretty well digested 
 in Germany, And Germany had but one provision 
 unsettled ; it was the question of war correspondents. 
 And the lesson of the Russian-Japanese War settled 
 that. Germany's war correspondents in Manchuria, 
 — all of them army men, naturally, — when consulted 
 by the General Staff at Berlin, deprecated war corre- 
 spondence in Germany when "the war" came. Thus, 
 1905. And the German General Staff followed closely 
 the action of the French. Whereupon all was in 
 readiness at Berlin, as well as at Paris. No, not all, 
 for the preparation and the secrecy had to go on. 
 But as much of the all was ready as ever can be got 
 ready for any crisis. 
 
 In 1911 I was apprehended at midnight on the Ger- 
 man frontier, for an English spy, by an officer who was 
 looking for a man with whose description he had been 
 furnished, and as I re-entered the railway carriage I 
 laughed to myself at the unseemly haste with which 
 Germany and the powers were arranging the arbitra- 
 ment of Manchuria, for Europe. Germany was getting 
 anxious over the general adoption of her military sys- 
 tem and the realization that in the Prussianized 
 Japanese she would have to fight Asia as well as 
 Europe. At that time only Russia was laggard in 
 preparation, — due to her war with Japan, — but not 
 very much. They all were getting ready for the test. 
 
 Exactly when the open discussion by Germans of 
 
WAR LOANS 19 
 
 their next dash to Paris began, just what year between 
 1870 and 1900, is not an essential fact. But since the 
 lesson of Port Arthur it was a perfectly well-known 
 "secret" among European military men and political 
 students that Paris would not be reached in a month 
 if at all by the flank hinged on the Alps, but could be 
 reached by battering across the low countries on the 
 flank hinging on the sea. The one cardinal principle 
 of "the war" was the nonentity of small States. The 
 resemblance to the campaign in Manchuria, where 
 Japan flanked Russia from the plain hinging on the sea, 
 in all the decisive operations, and the nonentity of 
 Korea, is striking if only accidental. 
 
 Military and political journalists were very well in- 
 formed on the approaching contest. One of the most 
 notable open discussions of the Paris feature of "the 
 war " is that by Hilaire Belloc, printed in an English 
 review in 1912, at least two years in advance, which 
 mapped the German route started on by General 
 Otto Von Emmich who met his Waterloo at Liege. I 
 say Waterloo, because that is what Germans say. 
 Liege to Von Emmich and to Prussia, in the light of 
 their own original plans, was a Waterloo. Had it 
 been a naval operation it would have been called a 
 Tsushima. 
 
 When war at last broke, I was sitting in the London 
 office of the Associated Press, at 24 Old Jewry, the 
 eyes and ears of the world. Soldiers marched up and 
 sealed the outgoing cable traffic, standing guard until 
 the censors' agents, as had those of Japan in East 
 Asia, arrived and screwed up windows and doors and 
 especially the mouths, minds, and fingers, of the tele- 
 graph service. As during the days and nights of 
 watching, the war slowly broke over Europe, along 
 
20 THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 with ennui over British military and journalistic 
 watchers, these men, in touch with the powers that 
 be, in the actual presence of "the war" that was to 
 change Europe as its predecessor had changed East 
 Asia and the Pacific, and before it was twenty days 
 old, placed the limit of it at not under three, and pos- 
 sibly not over twenty, years. It could not be as short 
 as Manchuria, and though the military resilience of 
 Europe was the greatest in the world, it was believed 
 the world could not sustain a great war beyond two 
 decades. And the press system worked out in Japan 
 for France, Russia, Germany, Great Britain, Austria, 
 and Italy, went into effect. 
 
 This was the conspiracy kept dark, which Germany 
 was charged with harboring against civilization. It 
 had been a long-contemplated, long-planned, long- 
 feared, long-thought-out, and long-talked-out man- 
 hunt, which on all sides is academically pronounced "an 
 economic war", as was that in Manchuria. European 
 States had a thousand years to learn to live together, 
 and this was the result. They could unite to punish 
 East Asia, where they went to learn their final lessons, 
 but they could not live together, and they had shown 
 that besides sharpening their tools in Chihli and Man- 
 churia, they could quit in Europe and the Atlantic 
 what they carried to East Asia and the Pacific, when 
 they found a third party there to turn upon. 
 
 Europe, old and canny shrew, eats war, lives on it. 
 She is so fat with frugality and eflSciency, built up with 
 her educational and vocational war organizations, that 
 she can carry the sword into the ends of the earth, 
 as shown in 1900 by the unprecedented China expedi- 
 tions, and in 1904 by the ensemble of European arms 
 on the Gulf of Chihli and the Japan Sea. 
 
WAR LOANS 21 
 
 Europe loses nothing of her fighting strength, nor 
 her wants. She growls over herself, spending decades 
 in making up her mind whether to fight herself or 
 others who can pay better. Japan armed and joined 
 her as a precaution. She watched the World War 
 brawl, trying to pick the winner. When she does, she 
 will bring him and his friends to the Pacific. That is 
 the policy of prudence and as much safety as is right 
 to expect. We are trying to worry the beasts down 
 while holding the stakes and making the winnings that 
 always accrue to the third party and the outsider. It 
 is quite clear what our situation is, and that is why, as 
 one man, we rose to arm. We know it is the time to 
 consider and prepare against being railroaded into the 
 fight for armed truce between the two civilizations in 
 the Pacific, such as has been in vogue between them 
 in the Levant. It is the after effects, the contributory 
 evils of war, that are the most to be feared, the most 
 insidious, the least controllable, and against which 
 there is no defense but 18-carat readiness. There is 
 nothing standing between the plunderable world on 
 the one hand and Europe and Japan on the other, 
 except ourselves, and whatever happens, the first blow 
 we receive will come in our weakest and most plunder- 
 able quarter, the Pacific. 
 
 The history of the situation in the Pacific could not 
 be brought up to present times from generally known 
 facts. The essential facts are the hidden property of 
 the foreign bureaus of those powers who pull the strings 
 of affairs in East Asia. The identity of those powers is 
 obvious to all observers. The considerations on which 
 they take the action which causes the periodical alarm 
 over the situation in the Pacific and the sacrifice of the 
 interests of weak nations or the nations themselves. 
 
22 THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 and the consequent embarrassments to the United 
 States, which champions them, are not on the surface. 
 I am going to undertake to uncover them. 
 
 What is evident from known history is that the so- 
 called great question of the Pacific is that of the ulti- 
 mate relation to exist between East Asia, especially 
 China and Japan, and the West, especially countries of 
 Western civilization in the Pacific. America's effort 
 in this direction, inspired by the responsibilities of 
 neighborhood and understood from the beginning, as 
 seen in the continuous testimony of events, is shown in 
 her oft-declared policy. 
 
 American policy in the Pacific can be understood 
 from a consideration of American relations with East 
 Asia, divided into the following periods : The Canton 
 Period, — from the beginning to the date of first treaty 
 relations in that region, 1844, — during which the 
 United States recognized the absolute sovereignty of 
 rule and the integrity of territory of all nations there ; 
 second, the Shanghai Period, beginning with the first 
 treaty and the opening of treaty ports ; third, the 
 Metropolitan Period, representing the arrival of the 
 envoys of the powers at the capitals of Japan, of China, 
 and finally Korea, 1853 to 1882; fourth, the Man- 
 churian Period, beginning 1894 and developing into, 
 fifth, the Open Door Decade, beginning 1900. The 
 year 1910 saw East Asia falling under the leadership 
 and domination of Japan. 
 
 The Open Door Decade had three important events, 
 which made it the crucial decade in the determination 
 of the question of the ultimate relations between the 
 East and the West in the Pacific. The first was the 
 Boxer Uprising, the second the Russian-Japanese War, 
 and the third the struggle of China to rise and throw 
 
WAR LOANS 23 
 
 off the aggressions represented in the association of 
 foreign allies, which, since the close of the Canton 
 Period through the evolution of international contracts 
 and special interests, had reached a written under- 
 standing to control the fate of China. 
 
 From the close of the Canton Period, the United 
 States recognized the territorial integrity of the nations 
 of East Asia, as well as sovereignty, together with its 
 own responsibility to assist with its good offices the 
 nations of East Asia to maintain their independence 
 and to raise themselves to the plane of advanced 
 nations, reserving only the right of jurisdiction over 
 its own people in East Asia. It acted on this recogni- 
 tion of responsibility in all ways, so far as it could, 
 without the employment of force. 
 
 By its various achievements, the United States had 
 established itself in the Pacific. It also had aroused 
 the concern of Pacific nations because of the acquisition 
 and assertion of rights there based on the claims of 
 possessions, and of good neighborhood, affecting all 
 the great powers. In fact, these were the terms in 
 which was defined a peculiar position of their own, 
 which the United States had realized, and in which 
 they rendered a peculiar support to the nations of 
 East Asia. 
 
 The two great factors of our expansion westward 
 have been the Pacific Ocean and the Open Door. The 
 Open Door was what our contact with Asia brought us 
 to. Under John Hay it was a well-developed doctrine, 
 defined and formally established among nations in the 
 Pacific in the last years of the Manchurian Decade and 
 the first of the Open Door Decade. This book is an 
 intensive story of what it led us through, what we have 
 done with it, and what it may lead us to do in future. 
 
24 THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 In 1900 the nations of East Asia had so far advanced 
 in modern progress, or fallen before it, that China 
 alone remained so circumstanced as to be able to profit 
 politically by our good offices and aid. Desiring, 
 before it was too late, to determine, in the interests of 
 mutual welfare in the Pacific, the rights and security 
 of China, and the proper lines of relationship of all 
 the great powers in the Pacific, as declared by them in 
 the past, the United States undertook certain measures 
 within its own rights. 
 
 What this was is not all in the category of common 
 knowledge. 
 
 The Russian-Japanese War was the great event of the 
 Open Door Decade and framed in their present form 
 the situations of all the powers, including China, in 
 East Asia. The relative importance of the United 
 States in East Asia in the outcome of this war was third 
 place, next to Japan's ally. Great Britain — American 
 financiers having supplied one half of all Japan's war- 
 bond revenues, in amount about two hundred million 
 dollars. 
 
 In May, 1904, immediately after the first Japanese 
 victories, Jacob Schiff, an American banker, arrived in 
 London. In view of traditional policy and American 
 ideals, Mr. Schiff supported the principle of integrity 
 of the Eastern countries, and especially the preserva- 
 tion of Japan — the great leader of progress in East 
 Asia. He regarded Russia as a great power, but be- 
 lieved her to be at the mercy of Japan, provided Japan 
 could act quickly and follow up her action, a contin- 
 gency to which the lack of money was the only obstacle. 
 At the same time, if unsupported, she would soon be 
 at the end of her resources, and ultimately, when 
 Russia was fully aroused, unless she received financial 
 
WAR LOANS 25 
 
 assistance, would be defeated. He had satisfied him- 
 self and his associates that Japan, though poor, had 
 her customs, tobacco, railroads, and other government 
 monopolies which were an adequate security for loans, 
 and therefore was a proper business risk. 
 
 On May 10, carrying with him the necessary financial 
 support from New York, Jacob Schiff entered the bank- 
 ing house of Baring Brothers. A remarkable scene 
 occurred, the incidents of which I will give as faith- 
 fully as I remembered them an hour after they were 
 told me by one of the parties present. 
 
 Japan was looking about for money. She had 
 sounded British bankers. The world was looking on 
 with misgiving as to her possible success. Addressing 
 Lord Revelstoke, head of the house, Mr. Schiff stated 
 his views on the importance of money to Japan to save 
 her from defeat. If defeated, Russia would move into 
 Korea and by suitable means make her way into Japan 
 and subjugate that nation. Russian success, he said, 
 would be a calamity to mankind, and it was the duty 
 of civilization to see that Japan received the necessary 
 aid. To prevent the colossus from the north reaching 
 the Yellow Sea, dominating Japan, and descending 
 into China, the two English-speaking countries should 
 supply this aid. Lord Revelstoke said : 
 
 "That is very interesting. May I ask you a ques- 
 tion?" 
 
 "Certainly." 
 
 "I would like to ask you if you have heard any- 
 thing?" 
 
 "Nothing whatever," said Schiff. 
 
 "Well, then, I will tell you. Only this morning a 
 loan to Japan of five millions sterling has been signed. 
 The Japanese wanted ten millions, but our people were 
 
26 THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 not very anxious, and it had to be arranged at half the 
 amount, and that not very willingly. But there was 
 some political pressure. You see, Russia is regarded 
 as a strong power, and our people hesitate a little." 
 
 To this, Schiff responded with the following : 
 
 *'Will you inquire whether the amount can be made 
 up to meet the Japanese figures ? " 
 
 To this Lord Revelstoke said : 
 
 "Are you interested, and can you secure America's 
 support ? " And Schiff replied : 
 
 "You can accept my authorization for the remainder 
 of the ten millions for American bankers. I authorize 
 you to secure it." 
 
 American finance thereafter shared equally with 
 British in Japan's war loans. King Edward sent for 
 Schiff and told him that he, the King, was greatly 
 gratified at American cooperation, which relieved 
 Britain from the embarrassment of being Japan's sole 
 financial support in addition to being her ally. " Great 
 Britain," said the King, "has intimate relations with 
 Russia, along an extensive frontier in the Near East 
 and in India, and the Russians would take it amiss to 
 find Great Britain aiding Japan single-handed from 
 the outset." He thanked Schiff. 
 
 Present-day American finance in East Asia was in- 
 itiated by Jacob Schiff in rendering invaluable service 
 to Japan. Baron Kaneko stated that this service had 
 saved Japan's credit. Other Japanese have similarly 
 testified to Japan's appreciation of America's financial 
 aid. American finance thus became one of the prin- 
 cipal factors in the situation developed in the Open 
 Door Decade — a situation in the face of which the 
 great powers, and particularly America, are in a state 
 of tense pause. 
 
WAR LOANS 
 
 27 
 
 The importance of this new element in Pacific afiFairs 
 cannot be fully appreciated without a knowledge of all 
 the thoughts which it must have awakened among the 
 statesmen of the various powers. The appearance of 
 American gold as sinews of war on their Pacific frontier 
 made a profound impression upon Russians, who at 
 once recalled their withdrawal from California, their 
 friendship for America during the Civil War, and after- 
 ward Russia's transfer of Alaska to us. Looming up 
 before her statesmen, greater and greater from that 
 hour, has been the specter of American gold and 
 American enterprise in East Asia. 
 
 But to none has it been so great a specter as to 
 Japan ! ^ 
 
 Asia and the future of the world, it may be said, 
 came to America to sit in council when peace was 
 made. That this council involved a change of hemi- 
 spheres and marked the first occasion on which Asia 
 
 ^ The distribution of Japan's war loans was as follows : 
 
 Ordinance 
 
 
 
 Pbomulgatbd 
 
 
 
 May 10, 1904 . 
 
 £10,000,000 6% Loan 
 
 £5,000,000 London 
 £5,000,000 New York 
 
 Nov. 10, 1904 . 
 
 £12,000,000 6% Loan 
 
 £6,000,000 London 
 £6,000,000 New York 
 
 March 26, 1905 
 
 £30,000,000 ^% Loan 
 
 £15,000,000 London 
 £15,000,000 New York 
 
 July 8, 1905 . 
 
 £30,000,000 4|% Loan 
 Post Bellum Loans 
 
 £10,000,000 London 
 £10,000,000 New York 
 £10,000,000 Germany 
 
 Nov. 25, 1905 . 
 
 £25,000,000 4% Loan 
 
 £6,500,000 London 
 £3,250,000 New York 
 £3,250,000 Germany 
 £12,000,000 Paris 
 
28 THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 has come to the New World to find peace are facts 
 which record the direction of the wind of world 
 affairs. 
 
 The relative importance of the United States in the 
 Pacific and East Asia was shown June 9, 1905, when, 
 through its own representatives, the Government 
 handed to the governments of Japan and Russia an 
 identical note urging the two countries to approach 
 each other direct, respecting peace. On August 5, the 
 peace envoys, Count Witte of Russia and Baron Ko- 
 mura of Japan, met aboard the President's yacht, the 
 Mayflower, and with their suites were subsequently 
 received by the Governor of the State of New Hamp- 
 shire and Federal authorities, and on August 10, nego- 
 tiations were opened in the naval stores room at Kittery 
 Point, Portsmouth. 
 
 Came about one of the most remarkable gatherings 
 of its kind that ever occurred. Having a simple, hard, 
 practical duty to perform, and a direct aim, it was 
 not as diverse and as all-inclusive as an ecumenical 
 conference, but it called men from the ends of the 
 earth. 
 
 Each of the two nations involved sent an oflicial of 
 its central government, of large political experience at 
 home and in the world without ; it was a signal for 
 the gathering of the Asian clans. Came the Russians. 
 Pokotiloff, the sinologue and political wizard of Cen- 
 tral and East Asia, left Peking to travel by the Pacific 
 and Canada to New England. Baron Rosen, who 
 before the war had been Minister to Japan, left his post 
 in Washington to join Witte. From St. Petersburg 
 came Korostovetz because of his intimate knowledge of 
 the affairs of the Russian Foreign Ofl&ce and because he 
 had been at the birth of Port Arthur and with Admiral 
 
WAR LOANS 29 
 
 Alexeieff there. Likewise came diplomatic agent De 
 Plancon because he had been at the funeral of Port 
 Arthur and of the collapsed Russian Eastern Empire. 
 
 Of the Japanese, none were more able than Baron 
 Komura, who came with a shadow in the person of 
 William Henry Denison, Japan's American adviser. 
 Japan's forces were compact. Takahira came from his 
 ministerial post in Washington; Satoh, the publicity 
 secretary, and the unofficial Kaneko, — the watchmen 
 for the Japanese bankers and economists whom Kat- 
 sura said were the Government of Japan, — came from 
 Tokio. 
 
 When the two great powers of Asia had gathered 
 from the antipodes their envoy-specialists in the di- 
 plomacies of several races and civilizations, the press 
 assembled its correspondents from the antipodes to be 
 the eyes of the world and look on. Came George W. 
 Smalley, of the London Times, and Doctor E. J. Dillon, 
 of the Morning Telegraph; Francis McCuUagh, the 
 mediaeval apologist of lost causes, who had ridden with 
 the Cossacks in Manchuria, journeying in the shadow 
 of Count Witte ; Howard Thompson, who had reported 
 the war from St. Petersburg ; George Ernest Morrison 
 of Peking, Ishikawa and others at Tokio — all came 
 from their European and Asian posts. Other scribes 
 from the several capitals of the world and from New 
 York and Chicago gathered at Portsmouth, and some 
 went to Oyster Bay to be near President Roosevelt. 
 
 The peace problem appeared to be one of money on 
 account of the great cry raised in Japan for indemnity 
 to pay back Revelstoke, Schiff, et al. Japan's poten- 
 tial assets from the war were great. And her repre- 
 sentatives claimed her right of the cession to Japan of 
 Saghalin, payment of Japan's war expenses, limitation 
 
30 THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 of Russia's naval force in the Pacific, and the posses- 
 sion of Russian ships of war interned in neutral ports. 
 
 There were two ways of settling the war : the first 
 being that belonging to a power that has been the 
 victor and is the master, namely, of reimbursement by 
 arbitrary appropriation and the imposition of a treaty 
 of indemnity; the second of arranging by diplomatic 
 skill, in lieu of compensation that cannot be enforced, 
 potential equivalents assuring indirect indemnification 
 through future profits and advantages. The latter 
 must be the best alternative to a power that, although 
 a victor, is not a master. Russia denied that Japan 
 had obtained the mastery and declined her demands. 
 
 When this conclusion was reached, negotiations had 
 been in progress four days. Six more days passed 
 without progress, and the Conference was adjourned 
 for two days to communicate with St. Petersburg and 
 Tokio. 
 
 President Roosevelt, who later received the Nobel 
 Peace Prize for his good offices, was the deus ex machina 
 of the Peace Conference. He had received four visits 
 from Baron Kaneko, Baron Komura's confidant and 
 the personal representative of Marquis Ito, had tried 
 in vain to enlist the aid of Great Britain and of France, 
 and fearing that the Conference was going to fail, sent 
 word to Count Witte that he would like to see some 
 one who had his confidence. On August 20, Witte 
 sent Rosen, the Russian minister. 
 
 Roosevelt made a strong appeal through Rosen to 
 the Russian envoys for some payment to be made to 
 Japan. But the belligerents were fairly opposed, and 
 he failed on both sides. Roosevelt's efforts caused 
 accusations in the press of undue interference and a 
 desire on the part of the President to appoint himself 
 
WAR LOANS 31 
 
 a plenipotentiary to accomplish a peace which others 
 had failed to make. 
 
 Half a million Russians were standing at arms in 
 Manchuria, awaiting the issue of the indemnity con- 
 troversy. Witte and Rosen, instructed from St. 
 Petersburg, made the following plans to quit Ports- 
 mouth. In case the Japanese should reiterate their 
 claims for indemnity when the Conference reassembled, 
 Witte was to arise, open the door of the Conference 
 room, and say to one of his aides — in Russian — 
 "Send for my Russian cigarettes." The aide was to 
 relay the request to another at Wentworth Hotel, 
 Portsmouth, the headquarters of the envoys, where the 
 signal, in the form of one cable word, was to start to 
 St. Petersburg and Manchuria, to set in motion the 
 forces of a still greater battle than that of Mukden. 
 
 It was impossible for negotiations to proceed without 
 the interference of parties who had not hitherto ap- 
 peared in the pour parlers. Hence the story within a 
 story — a second peace council. In the order of their 
 appearance, the members of this council were : Baron 
 Kaneko, Melville E. Stone, General Manager of the 
 Associated Press, Baron von dem Bussche-Hadden- 
 hausen, Charge d' Affaires of the German Embassy at 
 Washington, and President Roosevelt. Scene : New 
 York and Oyster Bay. 
 
 I was in Manchuria on the battle-front at the time ; 
 there was no verbatim record made of the conversa- 
 tions, but the substance has been given me by parties 
 to them, as follows : 
 
 On Sunday, August 27, 1905, Kaneko telephoned 
 Stone his desire to see the latter on an important 
 matter. Stone left his club, the Lotus, as an undesir- 
 able place for a private meeting, and went to Kaneko's 
 
32 THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 lodging in the Leonori Apartment House. Kaneko 
 explained that the peace negotiations had been stopped, 
 and he was afraid Russia intended to break them ofif. 
 Japan demanded an indemnity which she must have, 
 but Count Witte had refused the demand. He there- 
 fore wondered whether Russia would not still pay 
 under some guise that would satisfy her sense of honor. 
 
 Stone explained his view of the impracticability of 
 an indemnity, since Japan was not the master of 
 Russia, and Russia's attitude was such that she could 
 not be forced. 
 
 Kaneko suggested that Russia might redeem part 
 of the railway line, pay for the care of Russian pris- 
 oners in Japan, and argued that Count Witte and 
 Baron Rosen had it in mind to pay for the redemption 
 of Saghalin, which was in Japanese occupation, the 
 price of which might be made equal to that she had 
 reahzed by the sale of Alaska to America. 
 
 Stone pointed out that such a transaction, repre- 
 senting only seven million two hundred thousand 
 dollars in connection with the cost of the war, — half 
 a billion dollars, — would appear ridiculously small. 
 The proposal would be lost in the laughter of the world. 
 
 The two men sat down to lunch. Kaneko agreed 
 that it appeared impossible, but said that even should 
 they waive the point, the Conference was in danger of 
 being broken up unless something else could be done. 
 Stone suggested that, in this case, the thing to do was 
 to ask the German Emperor to use his influence with 
 the Czar to prevent the Conference being broken up. 
 
 Kaneko was rather flabbergasted and pointed out 
 that Emperor William was a yellow perilist, the author 
 of a famous cartoon aimed at Japan, and that he could 
 not have any natural sympathy for Japan. Stone 
 
WAR LOANS 33 
 
 replied that, even if the Emperor still held such views, 
 they would not be likely to have any consideration 
 in the question of peace, which he would be most 
 likely^ to decide on its merits, influenced by the re- 
 sponsibility of his opportunity and the greatness of 
 the occasion. 
 
 Means for reaching the German Emperor were then 
 discussed, and Mr. Stone was asked to arrange it. 
 Telephoning first to the German Embassy at Washing- 
 ton, he found that Baron Bussche was at Lenox, and 
 got in touch with him a little later by telephone from 
 the Lotus Club. Bussche was taken by surprise. 
 When asked if he could not come at once to New 
 York, bringing his official code book, he inquired if it 
 was something important. He got the answer back 
 that it was of great importance, or he wouldn't be 
 urged, and he started for New York. Stone then called 
 Kaneko to the Club, and the two decided that com- 
 munication with Emperor William could only be made 
 by the President. Stone called Oyster Bay, and 
 arranged to see the President. Kaneko affirmed his 
 authority for stating that Japan would surrender her 
 claims of indemnity, and with this assurance Stone 
 left at once. 
 
 At Sagamore Hill, Stone and Roosevelt framed a 
 261-word cablegram to Emperor William under the 
 President's signature, with a request to Bussche to 
 cable it to the Emperor. The message stated that 
 peace could be obtained without Russia paying any 
 indemnity, and that she could receive back the north 
 half of Saghalin, for which she should pay Japan what- 
 ever amount a mixed commission might determine. It 
 concluded by asking the Emperor if he could not take 
 the initiative in presenting the matter to the Czar, 
 
34 THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 adding, "Your success in the matter will make the 
 entire civilized world your debtor." 
 
 Stone reached New York at five p.m., just as Bussche 
 was arriving from Lenox, and with Kaneko's consent 
 handed Roosevelt's message to Bussche for transmis- 
 sion to Berlin, Before allowing it to be sent, however, 
 it was decided that the importance of their action was 
 such that it ought to have oflBcial sanction from Ports- 
 mouth. The gentlemen concerned could not under- 
 take to act in a matter that would involve the heads 
 of three nations, without the knowledge and support 
 of the Japanese peace plenipotentiary. In other words, 
 they could not send the President's letter to Emperor 
 William on the mere word of Kaneko that Japan would 
 abandon her claim for indemnity. 
 
 Bussche wisely suggested that he send the Presi- 
 dent's letter to the German Foreign office, just as it 
 was, but with a full explanation of the circumstances; 
 "and," said Bussche, "perhaps the Emperor will act 
 of his own accord." This was done. Late at night. 
 Stone telegraphed the Associated Press correspondent 
 at Portsmouth, Howard Thompson, to see Baron 
 Takahira. The latter swiftly threw a curtain across 
 Kaneko's work to screen Japan's position. He stated 
 that Kaneko was in no way authorized to speak for 
 the commission. 
 
 Monday morning. Stone hastened to see Roosevelt, 
 and it was decided to send a long message of explanation 
 to Baron Komura, saying that under the circumstances 
 as they appeared, he would not send his telegram to 
 the German Emperor nor continue to receive com- 
 munications from Kaneko unless he was assured of 
 Komura's desire that Kaneko should continue his 
 communications. The acrimony of this lay in the 
 
WAR LOANS 35 
 
 fact that it was Kaneko who bore the Mikado's request 
 to Roosevelt to intervene to stop the war. 
 
 Witte and Rosen received a cable from St. Peters- 
 burg to await the disclosure of Japan's purpose, clouded 
 by Takahira. Stone learned that his telegram of in- 
 quiry had not been "understood" in Portsmouth, and 
 revisited Roosevelt, who checkmated Takahira by 
 suggesting that the Associated Press make an announce- 
 ment that the Japanese had given up their claims for 
 indemnity. "Then," said Roosevelt, "let them deny 
 it or admit it." 
 
 That day an account at length appeared in the dis- 
 patches of the Associated Press, giving Japan's change 
 of position. Roosevelt's diplomacy and Bussche's act 
 had saved the situation. 
 
 Tuesday, Komura replied to Roosevelt, confirming 
 Kaneko's status as a responsible agent. This was the 
 day set by Witte for talking cigarettes, and by Russia 
 for dissolving the Conference. The Conference met 
 in profound secrecy, as before. Sagamore Hill, the 
 Lotus Club, the Leonori Apartment House, and Lenox, 
 awaited the diplomatic explosion at Kittery Point. 
 And Witte, coming from the naval stores room, said 
 to his aide and others, " Gentlemen, peace ! " 
 
 It had been upon Japan's request that President 
 Roosevelt had asked Russia to enter into peace nego- 
 tiations with Japan. 
 
 We pause now to think how recently we could ven- 
 ture suggestions and good offices to Japan. Up to this 
 time we enjoyed the confidence of all. There had 
 never been a time when combatants and non-com- 
 batants alike had not successfully appealed to us. We 
 had avoided entanglements, satisfied with being free- 
 traders and lending our good offices to contending 
 
36 THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 nations in the working out of the great political move- 
 ments of East Asia. This was to be the climax, and it is 
 well that it was wildly pacific as well as Asiatic. 
 
 When the Conference opened, Witte presented his 
 written proposition which was the Russian ultimatum 
 prepared in accordance with instructions from St. 
 Petersburg, which gave him the power of breaking off 
 negotiations. Satoh, speaking for the Japanese envoys, 
 calmly rose and announced that in obedience to in- 
 structions, the claim for indemnity was withdrawn; 
 that Japan did not wish to be understood as desiring 
 to prolong the war merely for money, and that peace 
 was possible on the terms of agreement already 
 reached. 
 
 Witte could not understand what had struck down 
 Japan's clutch at Russia's honor. Those unfamiliar 
 with Russian custom gasped in open-eyed wonder 
 when Korostovetz, likewise overwhelmed by the seem- 
 ingly magical outcome, took Witte in his arms and 
 kissed his cheeks. 
 
 *'It seems incredible," said Witte; "I do not believe 
 any other man in my place would have dared to hope 
 for the possibility of peace on the conditions to which 
 we have just agreed. . . . Until I was in the Confer- 
 ence room, I did not think what would happen. I did 
 not anticipate such a great and happy issue. When 
 my written proposition was accepted by the Japanese, 
 I was amazed." 
 
 Congratulations for President Roosevelt came from 
 Emperor William, King Edward VII, Pope Pius IX, 
 Takhry Pasha, Regent of Egypt, the foreign ambas- 
 sadors and ministers at Washington, Count Cassini, 
 General Booth, the Lord Mayor of Liverpool, the 
 Mayor of Southampton, The Trades Unions Congress 
 
WAR LOANS 37 
 
 of Great Britain, the Nobel Peace Prize Committee, 
 and many others. 
 
 When the diplomatic explosion at Kittery Point for 
 which he was listening took place, President Roose- 
 velt said to his secretary, Loeb : "Whistle softly; we 
 are getting into thin timber, but we are not yet out of the 
 woods." And the praise that his success then inspired 
 appeared extravagant. The Pope, when informed of 
 peace, rose and exclaimed: "This is the happiest 
 news of my life ! Thank God for President Roosevelt's 
 courage." After this remarkable exclamation, he tele- 
 graphed congratulations to the Czar and to all the 
 world. The general world-chorus of approval numbered 
 among its voices not only kings, statesmen, ecclesias- 
 tics, and workers, but great warriors like Field Marshal 
 Lord Roberts, and writers like George Meredith who 
 said : "President Roosevelt will be crowned in history 
 as the champion wrestler for peace." And he was. 
 
 No mention was made of the American-German 
 Peace Council in New York. Stone suppressed a press 
 telegram from Portsmouth, giving Takahira's denial of 
 the published news that Japan had abandoned her 
 claims for indemnity, thus shielding Takahira. The 
 Associated Press, when it printed its acknowledgments 
 to its correspondents who had aided in making the 
 Peace Conference successful, mentioned its resident 
 agents at Washington and New York, two men on 
 special assignment at Portsmouth and Oyster Bay, 
 and its telegraph operator. It was ten years before 
 the facts, patent to us, were publicly known through a 
 condensed article published by Stone in the Saturday 
 Evening Post. 
 
 Kaneko admirably effaced himself, disclaiming all 
 credit or place in the result, modestly retiring and leav- 
 
38 THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 ing the field to the accredited officials. He was present 
 at a luncheon given by the President, September 12, 
 showing that he was exonerated from any suspicions 
 in connection with the act that achieved Japan's 
 peace. Komura, according to official announcement, 
 fell ill, and returned to Tokio under a cloud of popular 
 disapproval, and afterward appeared as the genius and 
 the director of Japan's whole enginery of state. 
 
 Komura's apparent diplomatic defeat at Portsmouth 
 was reflected in the policy which he then forged for his 
 country, and in this his proper star arose. As that 
 policy has been not only acutely opposed to American 
 policy and interests in East Asia, but is contrary to 
 Japan's previous declarations, by being coordinate with 
 Russian policy there, Americans may see in it the im- 
 mediate fruit of their mediation in 1905, when Russia 
 was persuaded, by a strange combination of circum- 
 stances, to make peace. The world ever since has 
 wondered why Russia did it. 
 
 I have given the extra, or ancillary secrets of the 
 Russo-Japanese Peace Conference. The story has 
 been explained in words by Mr. Satoh, and in writing 
 by Professor Amano, ex-President Roosevelt, Melville 
 E. Stone, Captain Brinkley, and others. But no 
 written accounts of the peace negotiations which re- 
 sulted in the Portsmouth treaty mention the essential 
 facts, namely, those that account for the subsequent 
 history of the two nations of Russia and Japan in 
 East Asia, and the limiting of American influences and 
 interests, in which we started upon the payment of an 
 incalculable price for the peace prize which Roosevelt 
 had won. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 Westward to the Atlantic 
 
 Japan's entire world had changed. She left Ports- 
 mouth with a new earthly position, though nobody 
 knew definitely what it was, and the only persons who 
 might suspect were the Russians, 
 
 It was left to us to uncover. On August 10, 1905, 
 Edward H. Harriman, who was associated with Jacob 
 Schiff, and personally had taken five million dollars of 
 Japan's war bonds, started for Tokio. He set out for 
 Japan's capital on the occasion of the closing act of 
 the war, just as the peace commissioners were meeting, 
 and as Schiff had started to London when Japan won 
 the first land battle. 
 
 August 31, 1905, Harriman landed at Yokohama and 
 proceeded by train to Tokio. In the first days of 
 September, he visited Marquis Ito, chief elder states- 
 man and principal adviser to His Majesty the Em- 
 peror of Japan. September 5, the Peace was signed 
 at Portsmouth while Harriman was being received in 
 audience by the Emperor of Japan and banqueted in 
 Tokio by Baron Sone, Minister of State for Finance. 
 And within five days there was signed a memorandum 
 agreement for American lease and operation, with 
 American capital, by Mr. Harriman, of the Russian 
 Railway in Southern Manchuria and its resources, 
 
 39 
 
40 THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 acquired by Japan as a result of the war, which after- 
 ward became the South Manchurian Railway. 
 
 In the light of Japan's hostility to America, first in 
 regard to Manchuria, and now respecting all China, 
 it can hardly be believed that this took place : yet it 
 is a fact. Harriman's errand was masked by a set of 
 providential circumstances. While Schiff was loaning 
 money to Japan, and Roosevelt was turning bayonets 
 into pruning-hooks and swords into ploughshares, 
 Taft, then Secretary of War, was being snubbed at 
 Canton by a bumptious Chinese small official, and the 
 President's daughter, Miss Alice Roosevelt, afterward 
 Mrs. Nicholas Long worth, was in the interior of China 
 having daily adventures for the edification, through 
 the press, of men and nations. Finance and diplo- 
 macy could desire no more in the way of public diver- 
 sion, behind which to shield their operations. 
 
 This remarkable agreement, called the Ito-Harriman 
 Memorandum, lay unnoticed by all writers on the 
 subject of the Portsmouth Treaty and its history in 
 Manchuria, and of American policy in East Asia. It 
 was a tentative contract, which recognized as feasible, 
 and provided for the transfer of Manchurian railways 
 on lease to a neutral holder. Harriman left Japan for 
 Manchuria and China to examine into the value of the 
 railways in question and the possible attitude of China 
 toward the question of their transfer to him. 
 
 The conditions under which the agreement was 
 realized may be understood from a consideration of 
 the excitement caused in Japan by a publication of the 
 terms of the Portsmouth Treaty. Riots occurred, de- 
 struction of property, incendiary resolutions on the 
 peace terms and denunciation of the Treaty, and finally 
 the incidental mobbing of Harriman's party when en 
 
WESTWARD TO THE ATLANTIC 41 
 
 route to and from the house of Baron Sone, Minister 
 of Finance. Harriman's party, on its return from the 
 house of Baron Sone, watched the movements of the 
 mob from the roof of the Imperial Hotel. 
 
 Everything connected with the Treaty enjoyed 
 national condemnation. And although the mob never 
 heard of the Ito-Harriman Memorandum, the Govern- 
 ment at Tokio came to consider the plan premature, 
 and chose to forget it. The Government at Washing- 
 ton still maintains the agreement confidential, while 
 Japan has the most eminent reasons for keeping its 
 existence unknown. In Japan nothing of it ever has 
 been committed to the public. Its publication must 
 affect the memory and fame of Ito, a great idol in 
 Japan, and, in the light of Japan's subsequent policy, 
 it must stand as a blot on the record of the Govern- 
 ment and the Foreign Office, at least until a newer 
 generation. 
 
 The obvious reasons of Japanese for continuing the 
 secrecy of the Ito-Harriman agreenaent relate to Japan's 
 original attitude towards Manchuria, and the treaty 
 rights of other nations there as interpreted by Ito. 
 Besides affecting the memory and fame of Ito, and 
 exposing the nature of the counsel upon which the 
 Government, if not the Emperor, acted, all of which 
 was opposed to the subsequent expansion into Man- 
 churia, Japan, since showing herself able to dictate 
 Russia's policy in Manchuria, would not care to have 
 it seen that in 1905 she sought to bring America 
 between herself and Russia, by turning over the rail- 
 way to her. This was a measure which, to Ito and his 
 party, was an economical and political necessity. 
 
 In the minds of these men, Japan, after the war, 
 would require a decade or more to recuperate and to 
 
42 THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 safeguard Korea in her development, during which 
 time Japan must secure the effective neutrality of 
 Southern Manchuria. For some time a tacit admis- 
 sion by Japan of such weakness in reserve assets as to 
 make it impossible for her to retain what she had gained 
 in Manchuria, making it necessary to negotiate the 
 railway or abandon it, in its effect on Russia must be 
 an important consideration. Russia would ask if it 
 were possible that for ten or twenty millions of dollars, 
 — the sum Japan afterward allotted for reconstructing 
 the railway, — she would have fallen back to the 
 Korean boundary after peace ? Why, this was hardly 
 more than Russia was losing annually on her North 
 Manchurian Railway. 
 
 According to Japanese standards set up by Komura, 
 Marquis Ito, Marquis Katsura, and Count Inouye, the 
 signatories to the agreement, were traitors to national 
 interests. In the agreement, Japan, by farming out 
 and turning over the only negotiable asset of the war, 
 the railway taken from Russia, gave up the nation's 
 political vantage upon which was to rest its subsequent 
 expansion, and which is a large part of the foreign 
 policy of greater Japan. Toward the middle of Octo- 
 ber, Komura arrived in Japan, threatened with violence 
 by the people on account of the peace terms which he 
 had signed. In the opinion of his countrymen, he had 
 signed away the right to a great indemnity to cover 
 the cost of the war, and had left them with a burden 
 of debt which they could not bear. What happened 
 to him, including the threats of assassination, might 
 well have happened to Ito, Katsura, and Inouye. 
 
 Komura thought that the temper of the people 
 toward himself and the peace treaty showed that the 
 Ito-Harriman agreement must be buried, a conclusion 
 
WESTWARD TO THE ATLANTIC 43 
 
 quickly reached by the men in Japan foremost in the 
 Government : Katsura, Sone, Inouye, Soyeda, Taka- 
 hashi, Goto, and others — and Ito followed. Komura 
 said that if it were attempted to carry out the agree- 
 ment, there would be a revolution. Thus the measure 
 was lost. And President Roosevelt admitted that it 
 had been premature. Harriman himself expressed 
 that idea in a later visit to Japan, and so did Schiff, 
 who had actively defended and promoted American 
 enterprise inaugurated in East Asia by these events. 
 
 When Japan contemplates how, perhaps mistakenly, 
 she might have exchanged this present " Greater Japan" 
 for the alternative comprehended in the plan of Ito 
 and the War Cabinet, she must wonder what Russia 
 thinks, and perhaps what we think ? 
 
 Immediately on his return to Tokio, Komura, with 
 Marquis Katsura, framed a state pohcy with reference 
 to all Manchuria, China, and the powers, depending 
 on the abandonment of the Ito-Harriman agreement, 
 and the conclusions that had permitted it, on a principle 
 contained in the secret minutes of Russian and Japan- 
 ese negotiations at Portsmouth, and secret undertakings 
 between Russia and China, which our Government at 
 Washington knew nothing about. The abandonment 
 of the plan of Ito and the ideas of the Japanese Govern- 
 ment of that time, and the relegation of the Ito-Harri- 
 man agreement, was accomplished with most dramatic 
 silence and dispatch. The Government turned "right- 
 about" with accurate military precision and took up 
 the plan of state devised by Komura. How the United 
 States tripped and fell into the net of these complica- 
 tions through its lack of knowledge, failure to prepare 
 the ground, and ignorance of diplomatic history, will 
 be described. 
 
44 THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 A through, international route in Manchuria, created 
 with our aid and cooperation, would have satisfied 
 Japan's aspirations. But on second thought, after 
 Komura's return, she wanted all of whatever she 
 touched. Harriman, coming back from Japan, realized 
 the possibilities of her extension of that touch, and 
 said we would have war with Japan in ten years — 
 Japan's development would bring it about. 
 
 The world was also changed for us. But all that 
 we knew we blundered into. Harriman had acted 
 privately, wholly on his own initiative. He had come 
 into control of the New York Central and the Union 
 Pacific railways. With them and the Pacific Mail 
 Steamship Line, because it was a big liability and had 
 no prospects otherwise, he conceived the project of a 
 belt line of the world. His plan was to sail the Pacific 
 Mail steamers into Dalny (Tairen) and with the rail 
 connections afterward known as The South Man- 
 churian Railway connect with the Russian Chinese 
 Eastern Railway. Had he succeeded in Japan and 
 China, he would have proceeded to St. Petersburg to 
 secure connections by the Russian Imperial railways to 
 Libau, where an American steamship line would have 
 completed the circuit of the globe. 
 
 Great credit was given to Harriman in Wall Street 
 for what was considered a brilliant exploit in extracting 
 the Ito-Harriman Memorandum agreement from Japan. 
 Six years afterward Otto H. Kahn said : "A high per- 
 sonage [Honorable Lloyd C. Griscom, our Ambassador ?]'^ 
 temporarily residing in Japan during the year 1905 
 told me that the most amazing thing he had ever 
 witnessed was the way in which Mr. Harriman in the 
 course of a ten-days' visit to Tokio made a whirlwind 
 campaign among the leading men and succeeded in 
 
 ^' {/iS. ciM-^^ kp^^ •/ 
 
 
WESTWARD TO THE ATLANTIC 45 
 
 carrying away from the wily, wary, slow-moving 
 Orientals a most important contract, so important 
 and so far-reaching that, had it been carried out (and 
 it was no fault of Mr. Harriman's that it was not), 
 the course of Far Eastern diplomacy in recent years 
 would have been different in some essential aspects." ^ 
 But why did Japan enter into this contract with 
 Harriman? The facts are that at the time, as was 
 shown by her disappointment at Portsmouth, she was 
 looking for just such an angel as Harriman. Like the 
 poor peasants of Russia she was looking for "a rich 
 American uncle." Marquis Ito, in making peace, had 
 decided that if an indemnity could not be secured 
 from Russia, expansion was impossible. If an indem- 
 nity could be had, Japan could hold all interest domi- 
 nated by her armies and dominate Korea and Man- 
 churia up to the Russian-Japanese line of division on 
 the railway at Chiang-chun (Kuanchengtzu). With 
 the elimination of one item after another in the indem- 
 nity calculations, as presented by Japan at Portsmouth, 
 the Government at Tokio arrived at a position where 
 the appearance of American finance was a deliverance. 
 By the offer of Edward H. Harriman to lease and 
 finance it, the Government thought it had been en- 
 abled to save the railway taken from Russia, to turn 
 it into a barrier against the Russian frontier, and to 
 exploit the hinterland. In considering Harriman's pro- 
 posal, Ito had before him the fact that Russia was los- 
 ing (silver) ten million dollars yearly on the Chinese 
 Eastern Railway in her sphere in Manchuria. Harri- 
 man's main point was that he could operate the railway 
 at a profit and give a generous royalty to Japan. He 
 
 ^ Edward H. Harriman. An address delivered before the Finance 
 Forum in New York on January 25, 1911. By Otto H. Kahn. 
 
46 THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 had the means for doing this. With regard to Korea, 
 Ito remembered Japan's irksome burden in Formosa, 
 where it had been necessary to train Japanese ofl&eials 
 out of raw material before the island could be adminis- 
 tered. Respecting Korea, Japan had no administra- 
 tive officials with which to begin her administration 
 there, and none speaking the language. Korea alone, 
 to Ito, represented a task almost too great for the 
 nation. Also he was solemnly impressed by the na- 
 tion's responsibilities to the Koreans and especially by 
 the difficulties that would arise with foreign powers 
 in Korea. 
 
 The Ito-Harriman agreement therefore represented 
 to Ito and his associates an important, safe, and ade- 
 quate step forward, the wisdom of which remains to 
 be disproved. Had Japan carried it out, not only 
 would the subsequent course of diplomacy in East Asia 
 and the Pacific have been different, but it might have 
 been the greatest possible measure, in its consequences, 
 for future prosperity, civilization, and peace in the 
 Pacific area. As a result, American capital would 
 have been immediately drawn to Korea, Manchuria, 
 and North China, more railways would have been 
 built and industries opened, and Japan would have 
 secured our cooperation in all legitimate Pacific and 
 Asiatic affairs. Japan would have been a beneficiary 
 beyond calculation by a combination that would have 
 secured through peaceful commerce what she is en- 
 deavoring to secure through armament and threat. 
 The two nations facing each other across the Pacific 
 doubtless would now be working together for the up- 
 building of the Pacific instead of preparing for war. 
 
 America will have occasion through the decades to 
 remember that Ito was its friend, that he remembered 
 
WESTWARD TO THE ATLANTIC 47 
 
 with gratitude the aid which Schiff and Harriman 
 rendered to Japan in a vital hour, that he appreciated 
 their desire to continue it, and that we were trusted by 
 him. 
 
 Japan's distrust of the United States began with 
 Komura. Whether Komura resented the acts of 
 Stone, Roosevelt, anfl Bussche, because of the situation 
 produced at Portsmouth, or the acts of Ito and his 
 associates in contracting through Harriman for Japan- 
 ese-American cooperation on the continent in Man- 
 churia, it is certain that Komura was the first Asiatic 
 of power in the Pacific to distrust the motives of 
 Americans and of American policy there. The turn 
 of the Asiatic took place in Tokio when Komura 
 reached there from Portsmouth, October, 1905; and 
 there came the parting of the ways recognized by 
 Harriman on the Pacific Ocean, before he set foot 
 again upon American soil. 
 
CHAPTER iV 
 
 Rally of Arms 
 
 KoMURA in two months had cut the ground com- 
 pletely from under not only the Ito-Harriman plan 
 but all American enterprise, including long-established 
 trade, all of which had been guaranteed at Portsmouth 
 in Article VI of the Peace Treaty, which read : "Japan 
 and Russia reciprocally engage not to obstruct any 
 general measures common to all countries which China 
 may take for the development of commerce and in- 
 dustry of Manchuria." His work in this was consum- 
 mated by signing with China at Peking, December 
 22, 1905, an agreement whose terms, by the interpre- 
 tation which Japan placed upon them, gave her dom- 
 inant powers and special privileges in Manchuria, 
 cancelling the Open Door provisions signed at Ports- 
 mouth. Having done this, Komura placed in China's 
 mouth the statement that China could not consider 
 the proposals of the Ito-Harriman agreement by 
 which American capital was to be brought into the 
 railway in Manchuria, which words he sent by cable 
 to Tokio, there to be communicated to Harriman. 
 
 It was nearly three years before China was in pos- 
 session of the latter information and able to deny this 
 to the Government at Washington, but the circum- 
 stance was of no consequence to the fate of the 
 
 48 
 
RALLY OF ARMS 49 
 
 Japanese-American agreement. Komura had a knowl- 
 edge of the strength of Japan's position through the 
 secret information of the Portsmouth Conference 
 which convinced the statesmen at Tokio that in Japan's 
 future on the continent she must not be embarrassed 
 by American scruples of Chinese integrity and sov- 
 ereignty, equal rights and the Open Door, which would 
 be involved in American cooperation. As she was 
 allied with England, which guaranteed her from 
 British interference, she got from London the money 
 she first intended to secure from New York, to finance 
 her Manchurian Railway, an,d bought in America 
 with appreciable economy her railway equipment. 
 And it appeared, though it could not be asserted, that 
 she thus sought to salve over American reproach and 
 avert suspicion by a sop to that gratitude which Ito 
 felt to Schiff and Harriman. 
 
 Komura went so fast and so far in his continen- 
 tal, or "Greater Japan", policy that Russia, as well 
 as China, was alarmed. Russia saw in the haste of 
 Japan rocks ahead, when the world should find out the 
 origin of that haste, and the very next summer sounded 
 Wall Street for a buyer for her interests in Manchuria ; 
 she wanted to get out. 
 
 It took us years to get our bearings, thanks to the 
 tangle in the skein of race relations across the Pacific 
 which our Government never tried to unravel. Tokio 
 had treated us to a sample of Japanese liking for the 
 United States in respect to the Portsmouth Treaty, 
 and California returned the doubtful compliment by 
 a demonstration against Japanese. In 1906, when 
 Russia was looking for an escape from Manchuria, 
 this issue had its origin in the "school question" — 
 a controversy over Japanese students of various ages 
 
50 THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 in the ungraded schools in Cahfornia. Although a 
 recrudescence of the same opposition that was visited 
 against the Chinese in the past, it was, more than any- 
 thing else, an indication of the swift development of 
 the Pacific. Japan had just emerged successful from 
 her first great war, and the moment was one that our 
 Government regarded with awe. 
 
 The phenomena arising from the working out of 
 Japan's secret plan of empire, as it affected Manchuria, 
 very well defined by this time, had aroused enduring 
 distrust, and Japan was somewhat annoyed by having 
 to make explanations to our Government as to the 
 meaning of her acts. She therefore very properly took 
 advantage of the school question, when it flared out, to 
 create a diversion at Washington. 
 
 Our Government did not understand the Man- 
 churian situation. There apparently was no American 
 official, either in the State Department or in East Asia, 
 who did. But all outward evidences showed that 
 Japan was forcing a most aggressive expansion, mainly 
 political, into Manchuria and Mongolia. In the 
 California question we were helplessly wrong, but as 
 there was no solution that would agree with the strict 
 letter of the treaty between Japan and America, with- 
 out coercion of California by the other States, retali- 
 ation upon Japan for her insistence was made neces- 
 sary. President Roosevelt sent Secretary of War 
 Taft to the Pacific to emphasize the firm adherence of 
 America to the Open Door policy, against which 
 Japan's plans of unknown consequence, but immediate 
 injury and danger, were clearly opposed. October 8, 
 1907, in a speech at Shanghai, Taft declared as fol- 
 lows: 
 
 "The policy of the Government of the United 
 
RALLY OF ARMS 51 
 
 States has been authoritatively stated to be that of 
 seeking the permanent safety and peace of China, the 
 preservation of Chinese territorial and administrative 
 entity, the protection of all rights guaranteed by her 
 to friendly powers by treaty and international law, and, 
 as a safeguard for the world, the principle of equal and 
 impartial trade with all parts of the Chinese Empire." 
 Thanks again to our diplomacy, the "safeguard for 
 the world" depended on things our Government knew 
 nothing about. It was somewhat out of its element, 
 in a region where nations were throwing away their 
 pledges, especially after leaving a treaty with Japan 
 violated behind her. Japan had put into Manchuria 
 the younger and aggressive members of her consular 
 and commercial service, and the older and conserva- 
 tive element of her military service. She desired a 
 maximum of aggression and a minimum of danger. 
 America then imitated Japan in respect to consular 
 service, but unintentionally. We had neither the 
 knowledge nor the diplomacy to organize a plan of 
 action. So far was the Government at Washington 
 removed from having any aims of that kind in Man- 
 churia that Mr. Fred Fisher, the first American Con- 
 sul at Harbin, raised the whole international question 
 of the violation of the Open Door in Manchuria, in 
 Europe, Asia, and America, before he had been pro- 
 vided with any instructions whatsoever as to the 
 course he should pursue there. It was a fair example 
 of our neglect of diplomatic matters, which are the 
 matters of details, and though despised on this ac- 
 count by our people and Government, as shown by our 
 violation of the American-Japanese Treaty in Cali- 
 fornia, and other foreign treaties, are nevertheless the 
 whole thing in international relations. 
 
52 THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 Now China's real interests prompted a natural and 
 truthful expression of her attitude toward the United 
 States. Komura was not long out of China when the 
 latter looked about for the wherewithal to execute 
 means to safeguard and develop her Manehurian prop- 
 erty. She approached America, because that was the 
 only capitalistic and friendly power whose assistance 
 would be disinterested, and whose motives would be 
 without suspicion and above reproach. The next aid 
 sought was that of British skill, because as the ally of 
 Japan, British motives would be above cavil. As a 
 reply to Komura's cablegram to Tokio respecting 
 China's attitude toward American capital in Man- 
 churia, it may be mentioned that in August, 1907, China 
 entered into an arrangement through the American 
 Consul General at Mukden for capitalizing a Man- 
 ehurian bank with American money, — afterwards 
 fixed at a minimum amount of three hundred million 
 dollars, — to finance measures of commercial and in- 
 dustrial development, including a trunk railway from 
 the Gulf of Chihli to the Nonni and Amur rivers. 
 
 The American Government was as far removed 
 from connection with these efforts of China as it had 
 been with the Ito-Harriman project. In the absence 
 of any interest or attention within the State Depart- 
 ment during this period, the young American consuls 
 in Manchuria, after the success of Fisher at Harbin in 
 provoking our Government's interference against 
 Russia's violation of the Open Door, developed a 
 counter policy of their own toward Japan's aggres- 
 sion, which showed a determination to outstrip that of 
 Russia, who was now piqued into resistance, which 
 gave support to Japan's campaign. And this action 
 was so far out of scale in the State Department's con- 
 
RALLY OF ARMS 53 
 
 ception of the case, that it called down the criticism of 
 American Minister Rockhill at Peking, and a conse- 
 quent reprimand by the State Department. The 
 unauthorized and independent opposition of the young 
 consuls, and their accompanying propaganda, which 
 resulted in strengthening Chinese counteraction against 
 Japan, aroused Japan more than anything that America 
 had done in East Asia. And then began the real Amer- 
 ican-Japanese conflict of ill feeling and sensation. 
 
 In 1906 came the Japanese school question in Cali- 
 fornia — and the first war scare. It was a question of 
 the treaty rights of the Japanese, in America, partly 
 economic, partly racial. It was the real Asiatic 
 Problem — the problem of the like and the unlike, 
 for which, if there were any solution, there would be 
 much less written about it. Although the issue 
 started in the simple question of school privileges, all 
 Japan and all Western civilization realized that it 
 was the Asiatic Question. 
 
 We were still under the disability of a lack of under- 
 standing and of plans. May 5, 1908, when we signed 
 with Japan an arbitration treaty. It was remarked 
 in Washington that all questions there found their 
 end in that of Manchuria. The school and treaty 
 question had not progressed any, and Japan took 
 advantage of the situation to distract attention from 
 Manchuria by continuing her diversion at Washing- 
 ton. Roosevelt took the defensive, and retaliated by 
 sending a fleet of sixteen battleships into the Pacific. 
 Japan backed a little; she removed the pressure of 
 the school question by recalling her ambassador, Aoki. 
 The fleet sailed through the Straits of Magellan to 
 California. When it had visited the British Aus- 
 tralasian colonies, and had provoked demonstrations 
 
54 THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 expressive of a strong feeling in the Pacific against 
 Japanese expansion in Western lands, it visited Japan 
 and China. Not to offend Japan, Roosevelt avoided 
 sending the fleet into the Gulf of Chihli, the zone of 
 the Manchurian allies, Japan and Russia, Britain and 
 France, as China desired and had arranged. In fact, 
 by the time the battleship fleet had reached Australia, 
 the moral effect of the measure had been all that the 
 Government contemplated, and any further action 
 calling attention to the Manchurian situation was 
 avoided. Secretary of State Root was obliged to take 
 up the Harbin, or railway zone administration ques- 
 tion, concerning the Open Door, because Fisher had 
 made it acute, but he could not get to the bottom of it 
 and never uncovered the basis of Russia's position, so 
 well known to Japan. Roosevelt, advised by Root, 
 then inaugurated the opening of the Isthmus of Pan- 
 ama, the most important and impressive act of state 
 and diplomacy in all American relations with the 
 Pacific and East Asia. It embraced a possible whole- 
 sale relief from the pressure of the Asiatic question, 
 by letting Europe at Japan from the quarter where, 
 by defense of her flank, the Isthmus, according to 
 Humboldt, had protected her in her seclusion since 
 America was discovered. 
 
 But otherwise, barring the battleship fleet, with 
 respect to East Asia and the Open Door, Roosevelt's 
 administration drifted, relying upon its great Canal 
 measure of cutting the flank defense of Japan, the 
 Isthmus of Panama, to possibly checkmate that rising 
 and troublesome conqueror. After John Hay, nothing 
 had been done in East Asia to extend, or even to fortify, 
 the Open Door policy. 
 
 Then, in 1909, President Taft came into office. 
 
RALLY OF ARMS 55 
 
 Komura now loomed immense on the western horizon. 
 The situation respecting American interests in East 
 Asia was acute. The opportunities were very great 
 for effecting lasting good. The commercial treaties 
 had not been carried out, and we seemed the natural 
 leader in any international action because we were the 
 only power China did not distrust and the only one 
 she regarded as a friend. The doctrine of fair play 
 and equal right in East Asia, which, as time had gone 
 on, were strengthened in this country by the utter- 
 ances of successive American statesmen and officials 
 until they had conquered the minds of the statesmen of 
 Europe, was at stake. President Taft instructed his 
 Secretary of State, Knox, to give special attention to 
 East Asia. He was the only President who had been 
 to that region, where he had been Governor-General 
 of the Philippines. He had a special knowledge of 
 and a special interest in it. In the light of Japan's 
 treaty pledges and protestations, the situation of 
 China and of American interests, Taft enlisted some 
 of the foremost financiers to aid in preserving the 
 traditional national policy, and the securing of the 
 markets of East Asia open to American trade and 
 enterprise, and undertook to give friendly aid and 
 encouragement to China. 
 
 These questions will be finally determined by war, 
 and they need to be explicitly expressed. Taft's 
 course was the natural and proper result of our past 
 integrity in East Asia, giving us a position there and 
 in the Pacific, from which it was hoped we could never 
 be dislodged. With Taft's instructions before it, the 
 State Department entered upon a course which ul- 
 timately furnished a revelation of the underground 
 workings of Japan, in connection with Russia, that 
 
56 THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 caused Taft to remark on the neglect in the State 
 Department in the past. Japan's acts, notably in 
 bringing the zone of the Mukden-Antung Railway, — 
 a military line built during the late war, — into the 
 field of her special and exclusive rights, her civil inva- 
 sion of Manchuria in the Chientao region on the 
 Tumen River, Russia's acts in exercising civil govern- 
 ment over Harbin and the zone of the Russian railways 
 in Manchuria, etc., showed that a great conspiracy 
 against China and the Open Door existed. In the 
 dark regarding the most important facts of Japan's 
 and Russia's position in Manchuria, the State Depart- 
 ment, with plans devised to annul the known and 
 unknown foreign influences that were undermining 
 the Open Door doctrines, entered upon a voyage of 
 discovery. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 First Line of Defense 
 
 These matters of the relations and affairs of the 
 United States with other nations exactly correspond 
 to the relations which individual Americans have 
 with each other. Their importance to the nation is 
 exactly the importance of the things which make up 
 the intercourse and affairs of individuals. This is a 
 fact which has to be henceforth learned in the terri- 
 tory and expanse between the Atlantic and Pacific 
 oceans, which never had to be learned hitherto. 
 
 In 1905 the Open Door in China was a principle 
 accepted and kept by all the powers, and strengthened 
 by the terms agreed to by Russia and Japan in the 
 Portsmouth Treaty. But after three years of Japan's 
 silent but forcible undermining in Manchuria, and 
 onslaught upon our established doctrine, the powers 
 began to show signs of falling away. And while we 
 were still occupied in Manchuria, Japan's allies struck 
 us on our flank in Central China. It was necessary for 
 us to do something. 
 
 Japan's sheet anchor, through the results of her 
 war, as I will show, was Russia. This made the war 
 the dividing line in the Pacific history of all Western 
 powers. It forced them to shift their positions, and 
 it aligned them against themselves. 
 
 57 
 
58 THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 Japan therefore had other allies, however unavowed. 
 It was clearly seen that a new basis for foreign influence 
 and power in China was created. After about seventy 
 years of vicarious free-trade intercourse with China 
 and East Asia, we saw that we were being displaced. 
 We saw that the United States must readjust itself to 
 conditions. Our industries and capital shared this 
 attitude with our Government. The material and 
 moral advantages coming to us as a compensation for 
 our participation, along with our associates, in the 
 preparation of the field of commerce and relations in 
 China, must be safeguarded. In order to do this, we 
 must actually get into China with a nationally pro- 
 tected trade, prepared to take the physical as well as 
 merely moral responsibilities of our position there and 
 among the great powers. Laying down and picking 
 up commodities at the seaboard was not enough. We 
 therefore undertook to establish our trade and rela- 
 tions on a permanent basis. 
 
 China was the scene of a high state of competition 
 among nations. When these nations had first come 
 into open competition, commercially and politically, 
 in order to prevent collision. Great Britain, France, 
 Germany, Japan, and Russia created for themselves 
 "spheres of influence." This recognition of common 
 interests and the necessity of peace to insure their 
 prosperity made, in a certain sense, "allies" of these 
 powers, and common interests led to their cooperation 
 in the affairs of China. 
 
 At a favorable moment of good understanding came 
 America with the principle of the "Open Door", or 
 equal opportunity for trade. Set up among the 
 powers, chiefly through the exertions of John Hay, 
 this principle, together with the revolutionary effects 
 
 I 
 
FIRST LINE OF DEFENSE 59 
 
 of the Russian-Japanese War, seemed for the time to 
 have demoKshed the doctrine of "spheres of influence" 
 which had threatened partition of China. 
 
 It was inevitable that competition should reach a 
 more and more acute stage, notwithstanding the ag- 
 gravations due to the political effects of the Russian- 
 Japanese War. But suddenly, in 1908, its effect be- 
 gan to oppress American interests. The "Open Door" 
 seemed dissolving into a figure of speech, largely due to 
 the increasing control of trade by the three mentioned 
 European capitalist powers through loans to China, 
 which for five years had been syndicated and nearly 
 monopolized by them, and by the Japanese (Russian) 
 revival of "spheres of influence" and "special rights" 
 in Manchuria. Recognizing this, our Government 
 took steps to wrest from European finance equality 
 for America as a money lender, merchant, and useful 
 friend to China, in keeping with the integrity of her 
 long partnership with that ancient nation. 
 
 In 1909 came the crisis. After having granted to 
 Germany, Great Britain, and France, in the German 
 and British "spheres", a loan contract to build one of 
 her longest railways, — the Tientsin-Pukow line, — 
 China further responded to overtures from these 
 powers for the construction of the greatest railway 
 system yet devised by her — that of the southern and 
 western connections for her chief industrial center, 
 Hankow. 
 
 The success of these negotiations as planned would 
 have given the three European capitalist powers, whose 
 policy was directed to offsetting Japan's aggressions 
 in the North, another far-reaching monopoly. But 
 more: the European powers and Japan had learned, 
 and were more than ever convinced by Japan's Man- 
 
60 THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 churian expansion, that the control of industrial de- 
 velopment gave the monopoly of trade, and while 
 negotiating with China, they were arranging in Europe, 
 under the style of the British, French, and German 
 groups, a syndicate to control all China loans, present 
 and future, the most promising means of limiting 
 Japanese and Russian aggressions on the north. 
 
 The monopoly of loans, industrial development, 
 and trade in China, would mean not only exclusion of 
 American commerce, but the limitation of the influ- 
 ences of American ideals and institutions, and would 
 determine the political future of East Asia on Eu- 
 ropeanized lines, giving America both an unknown 
 Asia and an unknown Europe on her west. It was 
 seen that America must enter into China's finance and 
 development abreast of the foremost powers, or lose 
 not only her commercial and her political position, 
 but possibly her moral and cultural position, in the 
 rise of East Asia and the Pacific. 
 
 A problem was presented as to the best means of 
 entering this situation, which could not be effectively 
 dealt with on rights assured to us by treaty. What 
 was needed was a basis of physical interests. Having 
 no concrete physical interests involved, our Govern- 
 ment took stock of its diplomatic assets. Americans 
 were among the first railway concessionaries in China 
 and held a legacy from the unwisely abandoned Han- 
 kow-Canton Railway concession. And August 15, 
 1903, in consideration of the same concession being 
 given up, China granted the right of American partic- 
 ipation in the building of a projected railway from 
 Hankow toward Szechuan — the Hankow-Szechuan 
 Line. 
 
 Such agreements are common in China, and may 
 
FIRST LINE OF DEFENSE 61 
 
 be called premier-right-of-aid agreements. The tri- 
 partite drama of the Hankow loans was well on before 
 America realized the whole value of this as a weapon. 
 
 An impasse was reached which exposed this por- 
 tentous antagonism that existed between Germany, 
 on the one hand, and Great Britain, together with her 
 commercial ally, France, on the other. For three 
 years Germany, seeking future advantages, had worked 
 on the lines of a liberal and progressive policy with 
 China. She had recently favored China in the Tien- 
 tsin-Pukow Railway loan, in the German sphere of 
 Shantung, where she had the balance of power, forcing 
 the British and French in that contract into easy and 
 profitable terms for China. Great Britain and France, 
 with their vast interests already established, and 
 regarding those terms as dangerous, and having the 
 whip hand by reason of a right-of-aid agreement, were 
 determined to use it. 
 
 Britain, with her constitutional perversity in situ- 
 ations of gravest consequence, proceeded to reestablish 
 previous loan conditions, refusing to China the terms 
 granted in the Tientsin-Pukow loan, substituting 
 terms of an earlier loan contract which was one of the 
 most humiliating and exasperating that, on her part, 
 China had to perform. Germany remained passive, as 
 a silent partner, and saw China refuse the British pro- 
 posals. But when Britain became inexorable, a new 
 situation was created. Germany's opportunity pre- 
 sented itself, there was a flash of the political sword, 
 and a crisis came in the annals of China's finance. 
 
 The British in China felt justified in pressing their 
 position, from a conviction that they could control 
 China's credit and finance, through a financial pool 
 in Europe which they thought had been consum- 
 
62 THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 mated. On March 2, 1909, a meeting of the British, 
 French, and German groups took place in London, 
 which drafted an agreement to this end. It fixed 
 terms and conditions to be imposed upon China, and 
 not only controlled China's credit and finance, but 
 had in view forestalling America's entry into China, 
 threatenings of which already had been heard in 
 January. It was known that America was standing 
 in the wings with her right-of-aid agreement, and 
 otherwise might at any time step under the proscenium. 
 We thus felt the steel of Europe in the Pacific. 
 
 At the outset, China had appointed her leading 
 statesman, Chang Chih-tung, to conduct her negoti- 
 ations. He had long been Viceroy at Wuchang, op- 
 posite Hankow; he knew the Germans well, and es- 
 pecially the Peking agent of the German bank, Herr 
 Cordes. March 6 or 7 was set for signing this agree- 
 ment. Pending signature, the Germans gave notice 
 that they held themselves free to act, and in the 
 interval they seized the Hankow-Canton loan for 
 themselves. First securing a definite refusal from the 
 British, Chang Chih-tung asked the German group 
 bank to present a tender for the loan, and finding it 
 in accordance with the most favorable terms hitherto, as 
 was all previously arranged, he accepted it, and at 
 once exchanged pledges with Cordes. 
 
 Germany, who was fighting England in all her 
 spheres, had been watching this loan with the four 
 eyes of the dual-headed German eagle. Britain was 
 done out of the benefits and value of her premier-aid 
 agreement, which was one of the defenses of her su- 
 premacy in the Yangtse Valley, and upon which, 
 largely, she had been able to pool the European banks. 
 
 When it is remembered that Peking in these days 
 
FIRST LINE OF DEFENSE 63 
 
 was considered to have reached a position of impor- 
 tance in diplomacy and intrigue not inferior to that 
 of Constantinople itself, it may be seen what a furore 
 was created. From being chiefly the theater of con- 
 flict between personal idiosyncrasies, whose greatest 
 international affairs were social animosities and petty 
 scandals, Peking had been taken by ivelt politik. Ger- 
 many, who was to mortally assail her and all her ilk, 
 "had penetrated the Yangtse Valley", "the sacred 
 sphere of Great Britain." 
 
 Whispered at the club and in drawing-rooms, this 
 challenge electrified the foreign community and as- 
 tonished the chancelleries of a dozen legations like the 
 tocsin of war, while it sent a thrill to the capitals of 
 Europe and America. 
 
 Up to this moment, little more than a commercial 
 interest in railway loans in China had existed among 
 the powers. But now, an outside power had chal- 
 lenged British rights and supremacy in her own tra- 
 ditional sphere, and that power was her bete noir -^— 
 aggressive, audacious, and irrepressible Germany. 
 
 The event came at the time the German War scare 
 was raging in Great Britain. There were several naval 
 scandals, that spread throughout the British Empire 
 a feeling of suspicion of British naval management 
 and eflSciency ; German "spies" were being dis- 
 covered in many English by-ways ; invading German 
 aircraft were apprehended and visualized ; there was 
 a "Greater Britain" army agitation, and the creation 
 of the "boy scouts." A patriotic play by an army 
 officer, founded on the invasion of Britain by Germany 
 and called "An Englishman's Home", had taken the 
 populace by storm, and even had been performed in 
 Germany, to show to what length a British war scare 
 
64 THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 could go. Altogether the exploit of the Germans, 
 coming at this time, to the British was in the nature of 
 a submarine attack or a Zeppelin raid. 
 
 We then had been eleven years a territorial power in 
 Asia, and our own advent had been challenged by at least 
 one of these powers in Manila Bay. The sound of this 
 challenge had not died away when the German Em- 
 peror's sentence of terror to China reverberated in the 
 East, and it was loud in our ears when the challenge 
 of Germany to England sounded along our Pacific 
 frontiers. And the echo of it was still heard when 
 Japan and England by arms took possession of Kiao- 
 chou Bay and the German concessions at Tsingtao 
 and in the hinterland. It is a part of the sequence of 
 these events in China that it was mainly Japan that 
 took Kiaochou, and the German "sphere" which, to- 
 gether, were the base for promoting these enterprises 
 under discussion ; and one may wonder what the Ger- 
 mans now think of these exploits which already fore- 
 shadowed the interference of Japan in all rights in 
 China, however securely established in history and 
 practice, and defended by time, precedent, and material 
 interest. 
 
 The importance of Germany's exploit was no less 
 significant to America. It reacted by preparing the 
 way for American enterprise to expand in China, and 
 set in motion a train of events far more ominous to us 
 in the Pacific than were these events to Germany. We 
 had seen by the general grab of the European powers, 
 in their movement to out-expand Japan, that it was 
 time to do something if anything could be done — both 
 for the Open Door and for ourselves. How to make 
 them disgorge was our problem. 
 
 We see daily what Europe is on the east of us, and 
 
FIRST LINE OF DEFENSE 65 
 
 now we can see its potentialities and promises on the 
 west, from what the most recent past has to show. The 
 occupations of the powers engaged in the World War, 
 immediately preceding its outbreak in Europe, were 
 concerned with the Pacific. 
 
 The door was flung wide open for America's invasion 
 of the whole Chinese financial field. But this was 
 due as much to the means which Great Britain em- 
 ployed to recover her position, as to Germany's exploit. 
 
 How to recover place in the lost Hankow-Canton 
 loan was the first problem of the discomfited Britons. 
 They tried to overawe China by representing that 
 British rights had been overridden. Patriotic Britons 
 accepted the situation as a discreditable scandal. 
 They admitted having been outmanoeuvred, and began 
 efforts to recuperate from their losses. They failed 
 in their efforts to discredit the German agreement with 
 China, and instead of gaining credit with China by 
 claims of acting in her financial interests, both Britain 
 and France were charged by her with conspiracy to 
 injure her borrowing power. 
 
 Fortunately for them, they possessed a right-of-aid 
 agreement, similar to that possessed by Americans, 
 which entitled them to half the benefits of foreign 
 participation in the Hankow-Szechuan Railway. By 
 the use of this agreement, they were able to at once 
 bring forward negotiations with China for the con- 
 struction of this line. In the circumstances, it was 
 like a last chance, and Great Britain played her hand 
 with rather reckless indifference. Conveniently as- 
 suming that Americans had withdrawn from Chinese 
 loans, they naively tendered the American interest in 
 the Hankow-Szechuan line to the Germans, as a peace 
 offering, in exchange for equality in the lost Hankow- 
 
eo THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 Canton loan. America, in the past, had been indiffer- 
 ent to Chinese loan affairs, but Britain's action con- 
 vinced her more than ever that she was irrevocably 
 involved in the intimate affairs of China. The act 
 amazed the Americans by its audacity, while it amused 
 by its desperation. But before America could realize 
 that the British and French, in their contest with 
 China's credit, had capitulated, Germany took the 
 bait, and before the Washington Government could 
 act, Britain and France had confiscated America's 
 half interest in the Hankow-Szechuan Railway, and 
 had achieved the delicate task of reuniting the three 
 European groups. 
 
 These powers had again started confidently on in 
 their tripartite financial career, and were bringing 
 negotiations rapidly to a conclusion for loans for the 
 two railways mentioned, under the name of the 
 *'Hukuang loan", when they saw looming before them 
 the amazed, outraged, "impossible, but unavoidable" 
 Americans. They had hardly finished their own 
 acrimonies and reunited their ranks, when they turned 
 a bold and defiant front to repel American invasion. 
 
 America never had been so important in the prac- 
 tical and vital affairs of East Asia. The denouement 
 of this situation was the diplomatic event of 1909- 
 1910. Aside from the heads of the British and French 
 foreign offices. Sir Edward Grey and M. Pichon, and 
 the German Chancellor, Doctor Von Bethmann- 
 Hollweg, — the World War leader of foreign politics 
 in Germany, — the personnel engaged included the 
 principals in Peking : Sir John Jordan, the British 
 Minister, an experienced and able diplomat, and 
 seasoned "China hand"; Mr. Hillier, the blind and 
 astute British banker; assisted by the Frenchman, 
 
FIRST LINE OF DEFENSE 67 
 
 M. Casenave, holding a hard-won diplomatic rank of 
 Minister Plenipotentiary; and Herr Cordes, of the 
 German Far Eastern Chancellery, a good fighter, and 
 the sole survivor of the incident of the murder of Von 
 Ketteler, which precipitated the Siege of the Legations. 
 
 To oppose this formidable confederation was a single 
 official in the American Legation. Mr. Rockhill, the 
 Minister, who had seen the contentions initiated, had 
 withdrawn from China in June, leaving the Legation 
 to the first Secretary, Henry P. Fletcher, a former 
 Rough Rider, and a Pennsylvanian, upon whom fell 
 the pioneer work in China of bearding the European 
 diplomatic lions. Back of him stood Secretary of 
 State Knox, together with the late J. Pierpont Morgan, 
 Jacob Schiff, and other Wall Street capitalists, like the 
 vague figures of British, French, and German finance, 
 hovering gloomily in the background. But above all 
 was President Taf t, the first national executive who had 
 come into personal contact with the life of East Asia, 
 and whose special knowledge gave him a personal as 
 well as an official interest in the contest. 
 
 When Germany closed with the British offer of our 
 share of, and the European groups appropriated, the 
 "Hukuang loan", America's rights became effective 
 in four foreign capitals. The efforts which America 
 now put forth to break this four-sided European com- 
 pact into which China was led, and preserve American 
 rights in China, while aimed at all participants, were 
 addressed to China for the fulfillment of her agreement. 
 Secretary Knox expressed the Government's views in 
 a forcible statement which he issued, anticipating a 
 fuller participation in foreign enterprises in China than 
 America's solitary right-of-aid agreement would have 
 admitted her to, if carried out in the ordinary course. 
 
68 THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 He thus took full advantage of the circumstance that 
 the European groups, by their act, had opened the 
 door by which American finance was to be admitted 
 to equality in all enterprises in which rights were re- 
 served to foreigners in China. 
 
 Now came America's note, framed by the Division 
 of Far Eastern Affairs, of which William Phillips was 
 chief, under Huntington Wilson, First Assistant Sec- 
 retary of State, forwarded by Secretary Knox, and 
 requiring of China the fulfillment of her promise 
 through participation in the present loan, in accord- 
 ance with America's right to be consulted in case 
 foreign aid should be required for the Hankow-Szechuan 
 Railway. 
 
 In East Asia the "situation" is everything, and 
 here was a new one created amid renewed conster- 
 nation. China, with some alarm, communicated the 
 note to the interested powers and took a renewed ac- 
 counting of her situation. Chang Chih-tung, her 
 leading statesman, who had been Viceroy at Wuchang, 
 opposite Hankow, when the right-of-aid agreement 
 was given to Americans, was severely censured for 
 having overlooked it at the vital moment. He had 
 forgotten it. But as he was the greatest man in 
 China, and spoke with authority and resource, he 
 was, in fact, the whole Chinese position. He shared 
 in the pride which the European bankers took in 
 having brought the loans virtually to a state of com- 
 pletion. And to him was due the Chinese official at- 
 titude of incredulity on the entire subject of America 
 in the loan field in China. He got his view from the 
 Europeans, who did not believe that America would 
 fight the battles of commerce in China with the weapons 
 they themselves had to use. 
 
FIRST LINE OF DEFENSE 69 
 
 In justice to them, it must be said there was noth- 
 ing to show the contrary. American initiative had 
 become so supine in China that none could beheve the 
 United States Government capable of such energy. 
 In the ranks of the European groups, America was 
 charged with perfidy in thus coming into the arena. 
 It was said she had once declined, which had some 
 basis of fact. Two years before, British bankers had 
 approached American financiers, notably the National 
 City Bank and First National Bank, both of New 
 York, regarding American participation in the rail- 
 way for which America had the right-of-aid, and had 
 received a negative answer. Although other American 
 financiers made overtures to the British and French 
 financiers, both in January and in April, 1909, for 
 cooperation in loans in China, the European financiers, 
 for their purposes, at any rate, chose to regard that 
 reply as final. This view, which was now maintained 
 by the British, was shared by the French and accepted 
 by the Germans. 
 
 The Europeans, however, admitted the actual situ- 
 ation. Their first move was an endeavor to persuade 
 the Americans to withdraw their representation lodged 
 in Peking, failing which an agreement could not be 
 reached with America. They attempted to belittle 
 the financial power of the American group, organized 
 to defend, financially, American right of equality in 
 China, the abilities of which, they said, were untried 
 and unknown, and the members of which had been 
 hurriedly assembled for the occasion. They meant 
 that America could not loan money at the low rate of 
 interest prevailing in China, and would therefore be 
 dependent upon Europe after all. 
 
 These efforts availed the Europeans little, even in 
 
70 THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 the gaining of time, and only invigorated American 
 action. America's note had reached China in the nick 
 of time. The Tientsin-Pukow loan agreement was 
 signed January 13, 1908. The Germans, under the 
 noses of the British, had secured the Hankow-Canton 
 Railway loan agreement March 14, 1909 ; the re- 
 vised loan, under the style "Hukuang Loan", initialed 
 by the reunited European group representatives, was 
 signed June 6, and June 9 the United States Govern- 
 ment announced that it had conveyed to Great Britain, 
 France, and Germany the intention of American finan- 
 ciers to participate in the Hukuang Loan. 
 
 Present-day diplomacy has been flattered as the 
 instigator of the World War that was to follow these 
 events, and what now happened is a good illustra- 
 tion of its processes. The Europeans were very in- 
 teresting and specious in their arguments. They 
 deprecated a division of foreign opinion and policy 
 toward China, and said that pressure by America 
 upon China, if successful, would have an injurious 
 moral effect alike on all relations with her, as it 
 would show her that she could annul agreements with 
 foreign powers. Although we made good use of 
 some of these arguments ourselves, afterward, Amer- 
 ica refused to take an equivocal course. Our Govern- 
 ment held China to her pledge, refusing to allow 
 the European powers to come between. Fearing 
 a slackening of China's resistance to Europe, Mr. 
 Fletcher, in Peking, kept up a constant siege of her 
 high officials. Seeing that America would not recog-\J 
 nize the European groups, to the ignoring of China, 
 in effecting a settlement, the European governments 
 did not think it necessary to restrain their financiers. 
 On June 12, in consequence, American representations 
 
FIRST LINE OF DEFENSE 71 
 
 to China had become ahnost a protest. The European 
 groups were employing every persuasion to induce the 
 immediate ratification of the loan by China. Before 
 June 14, the German bank received instructions from 
 Berlin that the Chinese negotiators be urged to me- 
 morialize the Manchu Throne to ratify the loan as it 
 stood. 
 
 There had never been a situation in Peking like this, 
 and it had elements of great gravity. Fortunately, 
 America's concern began to impress the Chinese, and 
 Liang Tun-yen, active head of the Chinese Foreign 
 Office, though not himself convinced of America's de- 
 termination, consulted the European banks as to what 
 they were willing to do. Naturally, they all stood 
 together and urged ratification. Thereupon China, 
 feeling herself to be in a hard position, and convinced 
 by America's opponents, considered ratifying the loan 
 before America could make good her demands, hoping 
 thus to forestall further complications. 
 
 Seeing that China was thus allowing herself to be 
 dragged about, America called upon her to make good 
 her promises, on the one hand, or to repudiate them 
 and override American rights, on the other, and by 
 her action demonstrate the true value of her right-of- 
 aid agreement of August 15, 1903, of her confirmation 
 of the same, July 18, 1904, and of her repeated decla- 
 rations of friendliness for the American Government. 
 
 There was no imitation by Americans of the policy 
 and tactics of the Europeans. In stating its position, 
 the United States Government avoided all appearance 
 of pressure. It stated to China that America would 
 not attempt to coerce her, that she would be left en- 
 tirely free. But it emphasized that whatever China 
 did must be done in public view. 
 
72 THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 American representations to China had never been 
 so strong. Liang Tun-yen, the Minister to whom they 
 were addressed, asked what China should do. 
 
 "Tell the European bankers that you cannot ratify 
 the loan," was the answer of the American Charge 
 d'Affaires. 
 
 "But they insist upon our keeping our contract; 
 they will bring pressure to bear upon us." 
 
 "Stand behind the United States," repHed the 
 Charge, " and oppose their actions as being any prec- 
 edent for yours and ours. But do not send in the 
 memorial; do not issue the edict." 
 
 The Minister then stated in so many words, "We 
 will not send in the memorial." 
 
 "Very well; if you will not issue the memorial or 
 the edict, the loan is stopped. That is all that is 
 necessary." 
 
 No doubt China welcomed this pressure. The 
 Chinese Foreign Office thereupon formally notified 
 the European groups, through their banks in Peking, 
 that China was not willing to ratify the proposed loan 
 in the face of American representations. 
 
 America's first position was won. On January 6, 
 1910, in explanation of its course, the State Depart- 
 ment said : "Late in May last this Government learned 
 that an understanding had been reached between 
 important British, French, and German financial 
 groups supported by their governments by which they 
 were to furnish funds for the construction of two 
 great railways in China. This Government, believing 
 that sympathetic cooperation between the governments 
 most vitally interested would best subserve the policies 
 of maintenance of Chinese political integrity and 
 equality of commercial opportunity, suggested that 
 
FIRST LINE OF DEFENSE 73 
 
 American cooperation with the group already formed 
 would be useful to further the policies to which all were 
 alike pledged, etc." 
 
 This letter contains no less than ten references to 
 the "Open Door", again securely linking that prin- 
 ciple to all American effort and policy in China. The 
 Government at Washington had often interfered in 
 Chinese foreign affairs on behalf of the "Open Door", 
 and was generally welcomed by the nations. Its 
 recommendations were received with respect, but had 
 never had the force of demands. It was evident that, 
 in future, they would be received only on protest and 
 sufferance, unless we could show sufficient determi- 
 nation to maintain a place of physical equality with 
 European powers and Japan, in China. 
 
 Any one familiar with Oriental-Occidental inter- 
 course, as understood in Europe and the Levant, and 
 visiting China for the first time in 1909, would have 
 said that Constantinople had moved to Peking. It is 
 in this aspect that Europe's position in East Asia and 
 the Pacific, — its interests, achievements, and influ- 
 ences, — compel recognition. They make the Asiatic 
 question and the problem of the Pacific the great in- 
 ternational and diplomatic issue which Asia alone 
 could not make it. The United States was directly 
 involved in East Asia in the maintenance of a national 
 policy, just as European nations were involved in the 
 maintenance of policies on the western frontier of 
 Asia. But this situation represented far more to us 
 than the creation of another Constantinople, or the 
 creation of another Levant. It brought Europe and 
 Asia to our Pacific frontier. 
 
 America had now stopped immediate ratification of 
 a European-Chinese agreement, the effect of which. 
 
74 THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 otherwise, might easily be her ehmination from the 
 vital affairs of East Asia. Ready to prevent this, our 
 Government gave out an assurance that it would 
 strenuously support the claims of Americans to par- 
 ticipate in the Hukuang Loan. This was received as 
 a challenge by the European groups and governments, 
 which did not seem to be dismayed. They had with- 
 drawn only for air; they had not done with China; 
 they had not relinquished her. And the real diplo- 
 matic fight began. 
 
 On June 16, the British and French banks appar- 
 ently gave way before China's refusal to ratify in the 
 circumstances, and reached an agreement with their 
 respective ministers to the effect that the Americans 
 were in earnest, and must be approached with the 
 object of receiving them into the loan field. They 
 approached the German bank, and, after a conference 
 of two hours, won over the agent to their view. All 
 then sent identical notes to the principals in Europe, 
 stating their action. 
 
 The ministers of legation involved now conferred. 
 British Minister Jordan assured American Charge 
 Fletcher of an amicable settlement, but emphasized 
 the difficulties of altering the accomplished agreement, 
 the bankers contending that it could not be altered. 
 *'The European groups and governments," he said, 
 "relied on the justice of the Americans to accept par- 
 ticipation in future loans, in lieu of claims upon the 
 present loan." 
 
 Therefore, the British were unpersuaded and un- 
 moved. They had brought down such a clatter and 
 pandemonium about their own ears, since instituting 
 these negotiations, that they were still waiting for the 
 sky and air to clear, in order to see what had happened. 
 
FIRST LINE OF DEFENSE 75 
 
 On the other hand, the French had always been 
 friendly to American efforts, and having perceived an 
 ultimate American movement into China, determined 
 that when it came, it must be recognized. On their 
 part, they advocated going in with the Americans, 
 causing thereby a serious disagreement in the ranks of 
 the European groups as to policy, with the result that 
 the leadership of the groups was assumed by the con- 
 servative British, by right of their greater share in the 
 enterprise. 
 
 The German Legation in Peking had carefully re- 
 frained from entanglements in the case; the French 
 Legation held aloof, its interests being identical with 
 those of the British ; while the British Legation, which 
 was obliged to defend its premier aid agreement, on 
 which rested the negotiations, as well as the accom- 
 plished loan agreement, took up the struggle, the 
 largest part of which was yet to come. 
 
 The change of position, then, amounted to nothing 
 at all, in the view of America, whose agreement with 
 China referred to the present loan only. We saw that 
 our opponents had not been vanquished, though it 
 was plain that they were "fenced in" and were look- 
 ing for a place to ''climb over." The European in- 
 terests generously discharged invective at the "Amer- 
 ican highwaymen" for the manner of their coming 
 into the loan question, "so strikingly characteristic," 
 they said, "in its resemblance to the peculiarly Amer- 
 ican form of robbery called the 'hold-up.'" 
 
 Fought over as she was, China was in one of those 
 humiliating positions in which she had often been, 
 but never less conspicuously. She seemed to disap- 
 pear. Her ministers went into an eclipse. Official 
 visitors to Liang Tun-yen received word at his door 
 
76 THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 that he was reduced to the flat of his back. Chang 
 Chih-tung retired to the seclusion of his family, and 
 mourned over the attitude of China's "friends", the 
 Americans. He had expressed China's traditional 
 hospitality toward Americans, but when he learned 
 that his words regarding China's willingness to receive 
 American capital had been telegraphed to the American 
 Government, he was annoyed, and said that in respect 
 to the present loan he thought it was too late. As 
 this represented his concurrence with the European 
 view, Mr. Fletcher remarked that the American 
 Government held that it was not too late. His Amer- 
 ican interpreter, in deference to peculiar Chinese sen- 
 sibilities, explained that this speech aptly illustrated 
 the frankness of Americans, showing that, to use a 
 Chinese proverb, "they did not drink tea and talk 
 wine, nor drink wine and talk tea ; but when they drank 
 tea they talked tea, and when they drank wine they 
 talked wine." 
 
 Later, the old gentleman said the matter had given 
 him much trouble and concern. "When I try to do 
 something," he observed, "some one comes and slaps 
 my face, and another picks my back." This referred 
 more particularly to America, which had come to him 
 in the capacity of the "last straw." 
 
 All the pettiness of this kind of international deal- 
 ing is exposed by type. As conferences, code cable- 
 grams, and dispatches, it does not appear so mean. 
 It seems important, weighty. But in print, all that 
 is petty is brought out. On June 19, America was 
 still awaiting an offer from China. On June 20, the 
 European powers, Britain leading (being the doyen 
 in the negotiations), made known to the Washington 
 Government their official attitude on the subject of 
 
FIRST LINE OF DEFENSE 77 
 
 the American demands. With a view to conciliation, 
 they all agreed in principle to the justice of America's 
 position. 
 
 Then came an interval of ingenious finesse in which 
 the Europeans endeavored to discover the full nature 
 and extent of American expectations, and the minimum 
 with which Americans would be satisfied. Figures 
 were required by the practical European financiers, to 
 whom, in fact, the whole question was represented as 
 being one of dollars and cents. Even the cable tolls 
 were made an argument and defense by them, and 
 these expenses given as a reason v/hy the accomplished 
 agreement could not be broken. 
 
 The machinery of official intercourse is essentially 
 clumsy, and in the intervals the participants got into 
 mischief. Their strictly penurious view led the Eu- 
 ropeans into an error, the outcome of which effectually 
 convinced them of the seriousness of the United States 
 in the matter, as well as the justice of America's po- 
 sition. When they offered a share of the loan to Amer- 
 ica on the general principle of the "Open Door", 
 without recognizing American right to it by agree- 
 ment, the European groups laid violent hands on 
 American interests in East Asia. The essence of 
 America's position was that she was the possessor of 
 rights in the loan. The offer was impossible of ac- 
 ceptance; the crux of the case had been reached; 
 there was a new European discovery of America, from 
 the West. 
 
 When, by her refusal, it was understood that this 
 was the basis of America's determination to share in 
 the loan, it acted as a damper upon the Europeans. 
 They withdrew to make use of the Germans, through 
 whom they again pressed for ratification. We were 
 
78 THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 fighting Komura, Komura and the Russian agreements 
 with China that, with Russia, were his sheet anchor. 
 But we did not know it. 
 
 The action of the German group was now in con- 
 flict with the assurances of the Imperial German Gov- 
 ernment at Berlin. The inconsistencies showed de- 
 moralization in the European ranks. The French 
 disavowed German action, and the British wished it 
 understood that they were not in sympathy with it. 
 The assurances lately given out at Washington showed 
 that our Government was disposed to take the offen- 
 sive, and as its challenge seemed to have been ac- 
 cepted, the contentions appeared to have passed the 
 confines of safety. 
 
 On June 21, the Government at Washington re- 
 affirmed its position at the Chinese Foreign Office in 
 the form of a protest, though it was not presented 
 formally in writing. From the American point of 
 view, it now seemed that nothing reasonable was to 
 be expected of the European interests. Fully de- 
 termined to participate to the full extent of equality 
 in all loan interests in China, America had then de- 
 cided upon the extreme course of appealing direct to 
 the Regent of China, in case Chang Chih-tung, on 
 German application, attempted to get from the Man- 
 chu throne the edict of ratification of the accomplished 
 agreement sanctioning the loan. 
 
 Having nothing further to withhold, our people 
 thereupon presented their minimum demand in a sub- 
 stitute loan agreement, identical with the accomplished 
 loan agreement, except that, in addition to the names 
 of the European groups, the members of the American 
 group were incorporated, thus automatically pro- 
 viding equal participation for American finance in the 
 
FIRST LINE OF DEFENSE 79 
 
 whole loan. It informed the European interests of 
 the whole extent of the American Government's ex- 
 pectations for the American group in the loan, and 
 for American finance in China in future. It reduced 
 the fro rata shares of the present loan, and gave the 
 Americans a place in the Hankow-Canton section of 
 the loan, for which they had only a claim on the basis 
 of equal right. This the European groups refused. 
 They did so as a matter of course, and as a sine qua non 
 of resistance. 
 
 The rainbow papers of European nations who en- 
 gaged in the World War do not contain a greater farce 
 than was being enacted by the world upon the China 
 stage. And they were the greatest of the world's 
 affairs. The press dispatches show that the cor- 
 respondents were kept hopping around Peking, as well 
 as Tokio, Petersburg, Washington, London, Paris, 
 and Berlin, In the three latter capitals the exasper- 
 ation of the financiers was hardly restrainable. On 
 account of presuming to come into the Hankow-Canton 
 section of the loan, America was accused of altering her 
 demands during the negotiations. She let it be known 
 that she desired as a basis of settlement only that 
 American financiers should have equality of interests 
 with other nations, not excepting those (referring to 
 Germany and France) who had no previous right by 
 agreement to participate in either of the railways, but 
 nevertheless enjoyed that participation. 
 
 America's demands appeared all the more per- 
 fidious to the Europeans, because America was visit- 
 ing upon the Germans, British, and French the so-called 
 "hold-up" successfully practiced by the Germans upon 
 the British and French. The European groups were 
 now paying for their haste in appropriating American 
 
80 THE IVIENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 rights in the Hankow-Szechuan Railway. On every side 
 but the American, perhaps, there was a rankling convic- 
 tion of having blundered, that the most important in- 
 terests of the western powers had been bungled. 
 
 It seemed certain that nothing more could happen 
 to surprise the actors in this far-eastern drama. But 
 now they became aware that Japan was standing in 
 the wings. Russia, the ally of France, came for- 
 ward, and, on the basis of her industrial and com- 
 mercial interests at Hankow, among the largest foreign 
 interests in Central China, requested of China to be 
 given a share in the loan on equality with all powers, 
 in keeping with equal opportunity and the Open Door. 
 
 Leopold, the Belgian King, who held a quarter of a 
 million dollars' worth of debentiue bonds of the 
 Hankow-Canton Railway, also came forward and 
 presented a paper which Belgium claimed entitled her 
 to the first right-of-loan aid for the Hankow-Canton 
 line, and therefore a place in the loan. 
 
 This claim, while dismissed by the European groups 
 as a "mere question of money", caused apprehension. 
 The debentures were peculiarly worded, and were sup- 
 posed to admit of a dangerous interpretation which 
 would make them a valuable asset to a military, ad- 
 venturous power — hinting at Russia ^ or Japan ? 
 
 The affair illumined the mutations of East- West 
 diplomacy. Some of the participants viewed it as a 
 disheartening and unworthy wrangle, all the more 
 mean because of the paltry sum total of the loan — 
 promising httle returns to either the Americans or 
 Europeans. The Europeans could not see "what 
 credit America would gain with China, who was sure 
 to resent her interference, etc.," forgetting the prin- 
 ciple involved and overlooking the future altogether. 
 
FIEST LIXE OF DEFEXSE 81 
 
 At last came he who has come to be called the m.aii 
 in the mask. Japan had a sound right-of-aid agree- 
 ment by which Japanese engineers were maintained by 
 China for aid on the Hankow-Canton Line. Asserting 
 her place for purposes of record as a possessor of rights 
 of participation, she intrusted her interests to the care 
 of her ally, Great Britain, and then dropped from view. 
 But we began to see what it meant to fight Komura. 
 
 After this witch's scene came more toil and trouble. 
 Xumerous proposals bubbled up out of China, ema- 
 nating from the European groups and governments, 
 both of which were disposed still to fight for time. 
 These had always the same object of preserving the 
 accompKshed agreement, and the right of the Eu- 
 ropean groups themselves to mete out portions to a 
 fourth party, as against America's contention that her 
 right, emanating from China, necessarily excluded 
 the ser^-ices of a third party in fulfilling its provisions. 
 The State Department, however, ad m itted the desira- 
 bihty of friendly cooperation with the banks and 
 governments in some plan to enable China to fulfill 
 her obHgations toward America, and held itself in a 
 position to receive any overtures they might make. 
 
 It was a humihating situation for the European in- 
 terests. In fact, the position of the European groups 
 was impossible, but even more so was that of their 
 governments behind them, for the reason that the loan 
 negotiations had been conducted by the European 
 groups under the supervision of their governments, 
 without which super\'ision foreign loans, at least by 
 France and Germany, cannot be made. These gov- 
 ernments had sanctioned the loan agreement and were 
 parties to the ignoring of America's rights. Their 
 position was diplomatically untenable. 
 
82 THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 A sharp corner had to be turned in order to escape 
 from this position and facilitate an understanding. 
 The three nations thereupon issued a statement to the 
 effect that the responsibiHty for making a friendly 
 arrangement to satisfy the American financiers rested 
 upon the European groups. However sincere in their 
 object, they thus seemed to be washing their hands 
 of the matter. In the language of the arena in Peking, 
 Great Britain, France, and Germany elected to try to 
 *' climb over." 
 
 These tactics failed. The European groups and 
 their legations in Peking were made irresponsible 
 before the Chinese, with whom conspiracies were re- 
 sumed. Instead of smoothing the way to a settlement, 
 the fight was made more acute. And China sat down 
 to watch it, only to be more closely invested by the 
 Europeans. 
 
 Up to this moment, the Washington Government 
 had relied, for appreciation of the justice of its conten- 
 tions, upon the general understanding of friendship 
 and good will between the two governments of Amer- 
 ica and China. It was an axiom that in whatever it 
 might undertake in China, American enterprise started 
 out with one prime asset — a position of favor with 
 the Chinese Government, due, it is popularly sup- 
 posed, to such acts by America as the remission of the 
 Boxer indemnity. In fact, China has repeatedly 
 solicited American pressure to force American capital 
 and enterprise upon China, with the aim of safeguard- 
 ing equality of right and the Open Door. This asset 
 of favor in China's eyes had now actually been used 
 to the utmost to stay the "Hukuang Loan." And 
 the Washington Government still feared that per- 
 suasion from Europe might succeed with China in 
 
FIRST LINE OF DEFENSE 8S 
 
 defeating American demands. It looked as though 
 China, in spite of all, would ratify the loan, and that 
 the European governments would "climb over" and 
 get away, in spite of America's most strenuous pro- 
 tests. 
 
 America seemed determined that they should neither 
 "climb over" nor get away, and Secretary of State 
 Knox pressed his attack to nail them in. Charge 
 Fletcher consulted British Minister Jordan on the 
 subject of the influence brought to bear upon China 
 to force her to break her agreement with America, 
 calling attention to the serious results that would 
 accrue from this cause in case China was led into a 
 false position. 
 
 "Yes," replied the Minister, "I know." 
 
 "Well, I believed it best to tell you," said the Charge, 
 "so that, in case it came up afterward, you would 
 know what our position was." 
 
 On July 11, the situation of stalemate was con- 
 tinued, when the European groups in London recon- 
 sidered the question, and failed to reach any conclu- 
 sion on the subject of further concessions to America. 
 Then opened at Peking ten exciting days in the annals 
 of China's finance, ending in American success. Their 
 China agents, the Peking banks, visited Chang Chih- 
 tung and laid before him a statement to the effect that 
 they had offered the Americans a chance to come into 
 the loan, but the Americans had not done so. 
 
 On July 13, Fletcher discussed with Jordan the 
 situation caused by the failure of the conference in 
 London. And on account of the continued pressure 
 upon China through the European banks, the fore- 
 most of which was the Hongkong-Shanghai bank, — 
 the British concern in the loan, without whose sup- 
 
84 THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 port any influence directed at China in the matter 
 would be virtually without effect, — Fletcher stated 
 that the position of the Washington Government was 
 such that the British Legation would be considered 
 responsible for any action which the British bank took 
 in pressing China to ratify the Hukuang Loan. 
 
 That this warning from the American to the British 
 Government was given in Peking was denied by an 
 official of the British Foreign Office through the press, 
 but it is nevertheless what actually occurred. ^ 
 
 The same representations were repeated to the head 
 of the Hongkong and Shanghai bank in Peking, Mr. 
 Hillier, who said, speaking for himself, that he was 
 not doing anything. 
 
 This was our last effort to reach the Germans in their 
 activities through the British, who were responsible by 
 reason of their having negotiated the loan. American 
 diplomacy was exhausted. Moreover, the reluctance 
 of the European groups to give up the struggle 
 showed that they had the support of their gov- 
 ernments. In this state of deadlock, and the con- 
 fusion of the Chinese Government on the question, 
 matters were carried beyond the point of further dis- 
 cussion. Three months had elapsed, and China was 
 still unable to satisfy American demands for the carry- 
 ing out of the obligations of the agreements of August 
 15, 1903, and July 18, 1904. Continued pressure 
 upon China by the European groups, and the situation 
 culminated. On July 21, 1909, President Taft cabled 
 America's final representation direct to Prince Chun, 
 Regent of China. 
 
 The contents of Taft's cablegram were explained in 
 the following official statement by Secretary of State 
 Knox: 
 
FIRST LINE OF DEFENSE 85 
 
 [The President] felt warranted in resorting to the 
 somewhat unusual method of communicating direct 
 with His Imperial Highness, Prince Chun, Regent of 
 the Chinese Empire, informing the latter that he was 
 greatly disturbed at the reports of certain prejudiced 
 opposition to the Chinese Government arranging for 
 equal participation by American capital in the Hu- 
 kuang Loan. The President pointed out that the 
 wishes of the United States were based upon broad 
 national and imperial principles of equity and good 
 policy in which a due regard for the best interests of 
 China had a prominent part. He reasserted his in- 
 tense personal interest in making the use of American 
 capital in the development of China an instrument in 
 the promotion of China's welfare, and an increase in 
 her material prosperity, without entanglements or 
 embarrassments that might affect the growth of her 
 independent political power and the preservation of 
 her territorial integrity. 
 
 This action was unprecedented. The furore created 
 in the Forbidden City ended in the Prince Regent 
 summoning the members of the Chinese Foreign 
 Office, and of the Grand Council, which included Chang 
 Chih-tung. 
 
 Outside the Forbidden City, and in Europe, Taft's 
 action was regarded as an unwarranted misuse of 
 executive privilege, which, in different circumstances, 
 would have been met with executive retaliation. An 
 attempt was put forward to draw out the personal in- 
 terference of the German Emperor, a project that had 
 some ground for success, but was reluctantly relin- 
 quished. Manila Bay was avoided. An agreement 
 satisfactory to all parties quickly resulted. It only 
 remained for the American Charge to arrange with 
 
86 THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 China an increase in the sum total of the loan, so that 
 the admittance of a fourth party would not diminish 
 the amount of the original allotments to participants, 
 thus furnishing a happy solution of this long and 
 bitter contention. 
 
 Speaking of the President's cablegram to the Prince 
 Regent, the State Department stated that "as a re- 
 sult of the communication, an agreement was reached 
 with the Chinese Government that American bankers 
 should take one fourth of the total loan, and that 
 Americans and American materials should have all 
 the same rights, privileges, preferences, and discretions 
 for all present and prospective lines that were reserved 
 to the British, German, and French nationals, and 
 materials under the terms of the original agreement," 
 etc., and, "after several months of continuous nego- 
 tiation, the right to such American participation has 
 been acknowledged, and a final settlement on this 
 basis has been completed." 
 
 And what was it all about ? On May 23, 1910, the 
 Hukuang Loan was signed by the four groups in 
 Paris. The achievement was a victory for American 
 commerce, trade, the influence of American institu- 
 tions, and for the Open Door, in China. It was a 
 successful vindication of the principle of equal op- 
 portunity there. By virtue of it, America's position 
 in China became a new subject of study. American 
 commercial opportunity was placed on a par in China 
 with that of other great industrial nations, and on 
 account of her peculiar relation to China, America was 
 involved in greater responsibilities there. She was the 
 practical defender of the Open Door — she had ex- 
 onerated herself from the old charge of profiting at 
 the expense of the powers who had been the champions 
 
FIRST LINE OF DEFENSE 87 
 
 of foreign interests. She was not only holding up her 
 end in the policies which all had recognized, but she 
 was defending East Asia and the interests of the 
 Pacific against Europe. 
 
 But the most remarkable thing about it was that 
 Japan never appeared in the negotiations. She re- 
 mained in the background. But it carried to her per- 
 haps its most powerful lesson, the object lesson of 
 American capital which Japan had learned five years 
 before with respect to herself, her integrity, her safety, 
 and her material prosperity. It was explained to her, 
 in the words of Taft, when he "reasserted his intense 
 personal interest in making the use of American capital 
 in the development of China an instrument in the 
 promotion of China's welfare, and an increase in her 
 material prosperity, without entanglements or em- 
 barrassments that might affect the growth of her in- 
 dependent political power and the preservation of her 
 territorial integrity." 
 
 That was to Japan a challenge which neither Komura 
 nor his successors have allowed Japan to forget, even 
 for a moment. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 Second Line of Defense 
 
 It was a famous victory. We thought to make 
 stable our commerce, make permanent our friendly 
 and helpful relations with China, which were three 
 quarters of a century old before Japan came on the 
 map, even of the Pacific, much less of the world, and 
 perhaps restore our merchant marine which had owed 
 its existence to the Pacific. 
 
 Although we had a good deal to do before realizing 
 this, the opportunitites were greater than ever before, 
 and China herself had been waiting for years for the 
 signs of new life in us which she now perceived. China 
 needed what we could supply much more than we needed 
 what she could give, for life itself was the stake to her. 
 
 There seems no reason to doubt, from what we know 
 now, that action such as President Taft took in tele- 
 graphing Prince Chun, had it been in opposition to 
 Japan, quickly would have led to war. Yet our Gov- 
 ernment followed up its action in Central China, as 
 represented by the Hukuang Loan, along the same 
 lines in the neighborhood of Japan's principal inter- 
 ests in China. It raised the " Manchurian question." 
 
 Foreign danger to China, and the greatest menace to 
 the principle of the Open Door and integrity of China's 
 territory and sovereignty, were establishing themselves 
 
SECOND LINE OF DEFENSE 89 
 
 in Manchuria in the form of special rights claimed 
 there by Russia and Japan. Through respective al- 
 liances of these powers with France and Great 
 Britain to protect those assumed rights, the latter 
 seemed to be crystalHzing. In her struggle with the 
 powers, China found them aligned in two groups that 
 divided China proper and Manchuria between them. 
 Of the great powers with which she had to contend 
 most. Great Britain, France, and Germany were of 
 the first group, while Russia and Japan, supported by 
 their allies, formed the second. On the basis of an 
 understanding with Great Britain and France, re- 
 spectively, that they should be left unmolested in 
 Manchuria,^ Russia and Japan pursued a negative 
 policy in China proper, and this is the reason Russia 
 and Japan did not appear in the negotiation of the 
 Hukuang Loan. By the same token, France and 
 Great Britain would not appear directly in the affairs 
 of Manchuria, where all comers would be met by 
 Japan, who had won the upper hand by battle, and 
 Russia. But, nevertheless, all four of these powers 
 were the Manchurian allies, constituting the real ob- 
 stacles to the principles to which America was com- 
 mitted in East Asia. America was in conflict with 
 them all, and it was in their most exclusive region 
 that America undertook measures of self interest 
 looking to the preservation of the Open Door doctrine 
 and the prevention of future conflicts. 
 
 Manchuria was a political tinder box. For fifteen 
 years it had been known as the appropriate base for 
 the conquest of East Asia. John Hay had referred to 
 it, and the surrounding regions, as superseding the 
 
 1 From the British-Russian, Scott-Muravieff, agreement of April 28, 
 1899. 
 
90 THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 Balkans in respect to the great question of the future 
 laid upon mankind. The press of the whole world 
 had for several years emphasized the gravity of the 
 political situation in Manchuria, due to the conflict 
 of the special rights of Russia and Japan with the 
 treaty rights of other nations. China, in her treaties 
 with all nations, uniformly granted to each all the 
 rights enjoyed by any one. But Japan and Russia 
 said, in effect, that special rights guaranteed by treaty, 
 and inherent in immemorial neighborhood, were there 
 consolidated in peaceable and in warlike practice. 
 At this time the Japanese freely claimed that the 
 bodies of thousands of their killed were a part of the 
 Manchurian soil, and therefore the tenure of Japan's 
 special rights there was secured by war and blood. 
 The obvious meaning of this boast was this : If you do 
 not accept this claim, bring on your guns. 
 
 America could not accept it, and though the difficul- 
 ties were great, she nevertheless took steps for the 
 solution of the Manchurian question which was 
 threatening the existence of the Open Door policy. 
 Before the diplomacy of the Hukuang Loan was 
 finished, aware that the principles of the Open Door 
 and the integrity of China would owe their survival to 
 the outcome in Manchuria, the Government at Wash- 
 ington had under way, for the solution of that perhaps 
 insoluble problem, what may be called a plan of state, 
 of which the invasion of the Hukuang Loan was the 
 beginning. Secretary of State Knox indicated this 
 when he said: "The action of the government in re- 
 spect to the pending (Hukuang) loan was but the first 
 step in a new phase of the traditional policy of the 
 United States in China and with special reference to 
 Manchuria." 
 
SECOND LINE OF DEFENSE 91 
 
 Now came the second step, the most ambitious 
 diplomatic project promoted by America in East 
 Asia, introduced under portentous poHtical circum- 
 stances, as may be seen by a set of dramatic incidents. 
 Following the Portsmouth Treaty, and Ito-Harriman 
 agreement, the greatest problems of political, indus- 
 trial, and social progress for China developed in Man- 
 churia. In the north she had to deal for the time 
 only with quiescent Russia; but in the south was 
 Japan, not merely active, but aggressive, in promoting 
 extension of her interests, principally her industrial 
 and commercial expansion, quickly forcing Russia, as 
 a matter of self-protection, to follow in her political, 
 if not in her commercial footsteps, and of course 
 involving Great Britain and France. 
 
 Came to the front many questions affecting boun- 
 daries, natural resources to be opened up, trade, and 
 especially railways and jurisdiction. China's states- 
 men were never at any moment deluded : they per- 
 ceived that the main issue in all this was China's sov- 
 ereignty and integrity. She undertook the only con- 
 sistent dealing with nations resembling a foreign policy 
 which ever had been hers. The line of it was dic- 
 tated by her situation and problem in Manchuria. 
 
 In 1905, at the end of the war, the northern terminus 
 of her own Manchurian railways was at Hsin-min-tun, 
 thirty-five miles west of Mukden. On April 15, 1907, 
 Japan sold to China a military railway used during the 
 war, connecting these two places. This was in ful- 
 fillment of the terms of the convention negotiated at 
 Peking by Komura, with Prince Ching, December 22, 
 1905, to adjust the post-bellum relations between 
 China and Japan in Manchuria. China's commis- 
 sioners to negotiate this convention with Komura in- 
 
92 THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 eluded, among others, Yuan Shih-k'ai, who later be- 
 came president of the Republic, assisted by Hsu Shih- 
 chang, and Tong Shao-yi, who had been a student at 
 Columbia University, New York. In the minutes of 
 the convention, a reservation was made by Japan, 
 binding China not to construct any competing line 
 parallel with the railways of Manchuria acquired by 
 Japan from Russia, as well as the reservation of Japan's 
 right to be consulted regarding new railways there. 
 But there was nothing in contravention of China's 
 rights in the zone of her own railways, and nothing 
 that went beyond the guarantees that had been given 
 Russia before. 
 
 In 1907, the Manchurian government was remodeled, 
 and a new administration inaugurated. Hsu Shih- 
 chang soon became Viceroy. Tong Shao-yi became 
 Governor at Mukden, and it was in this capacity that 
 he negotiated the purchase of the railway to bring 
 China's terminus to Mukden, and again pledged China 
 to Japan's reservation. 
 
 Tong Shao-yi, the American student, by the very 
 reason of his training and his political conceptions, was 
 inevitably destined, in such a position, to enact the 
 obvious conflict, on a scale, betvv^een Japan and Amer- 
 ica. He understood, perhaps better than any Chinese 
 official, the importance of railways built and controlled 
 by China in Manchuria as a foil and buffer to foreign 
 railways existing there, which he saw otherwise were 
 to control commerce and trade, if not administration, 
 just as they do elsewhere. If China hoped to com- 
 pete with Japan in the development of communica- 
 tions, and to save a share of railway power in Man- 
 churia, a strong policy in opposition to Japan and 
 Russia must be adopted. Means must be taken to 
 
SECOND LINE OF DEFENSE 93 
 
 determine two things : First, the meaning of the Jap- 
 anese terms of reservation, and second, the temper of 
 Japan, who, in violent contradiction of her motives 
 for war with Russia declared in the beginning, had 
 begun to lay stress upon the fact that as a result of a 
 great and costly war, she had expended much blood 
 and treasure for what she now held to be the few 
 advantages she had in Manchuria. In other words, 
 China was faced with the problem of finding out what 
 she herself could or could not do in her own provinces 
 of Manchuria, without crossing Japan. 
 
 China took bold action. It was now that Tong 
 Shao-yi arranged with the American Consul General 
 at Mukden (Mr. Willard Straight) a plan for American 
 capital to finance China's important Manchurian en- 
 terprise. With the cooperation of the Viceroy, he 
 arranged with British contractors, Pauling and Com- 
 pany, for an extension of the Hsin-min-tun Railway 
 northward to Fa-ku-men, and this arrangement was 
 sanctioned by the Throne in Peking. By an oversight 
 in the British Legation in Peking, British interests 
 were thus allowed to appear as the antagonists of 
 Japanese, and this the British Government had to 
 repudiate to avoid international clashing. But the 
 fat was in the fire. 
 
 The inadvertence of a small Chinese official in 
 Tientsin apprised Japan of China's action, and she 
 complained of unfairness, protesting against the con- 
 struction of the line on the ground that it was in 
 proximity to the South Manchurian Railway and 
 parallel to it, and therefore competitive. This posi- 
 tion was supported by Japan's ally. Great Britain, 
 who declared that the British contractors must sat- 
 isfy Japan's objections. A portion of the British 
 
94 THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 press attacked Sir Edward Grey, British Secretary 
 for Foreign Affairs, their Government's Japanese 
 pohcy in Manchuria, and the Anglo-Japanese alli- 
 ance itself, but failed in any way to alter the situation. 
 China proved by this experiment that she could not 
 build a railway that started within thirty-five miles 
 of the South Manchurian Railway. 
 
 In her contentions with Japan, China endeavored 
 to get an authoritative statement from her neighbor, 
 defining some limit of the zone of Japan's railway in 
 Manchuria beyond which China could build railways. 
 She failed. Although Japan laid down several plans 
 for cooperation with China, it was always with the 
 object of making all railway construction part of her 
 own system and contributory to it. China thereby 
 learned that Japan had appropriated the area of the 
 projected Hsin-min-tun Railway into Mongolia, as 
 well as that of the former Russian Railway, and ex- 
 pected to control all railway construction in Southern 
 Manchuria and Eastern Mongolia. 
 
 Tong Shao-yi was beaten but undismayed. He 
 began the second step in China's foreign policy. This 
 was an undertaking to carry out at once the plan to 
 enlist the financial aid of America. What means he 
 took to do this is well worthy a chapter of its own in 
 the story of conflict between America and Japan. 
 
 Some Japanese assert that the conflict between 
 America and Japan over Manchuria was the result of 
 the machinations of a party at the American Con- 
 sulate-General in Mukden, humorously referred to in 
 American diplomatic circles in East Asia, at the time, 
 as the "Mukden cabinet." It consisted of the young 
 consular officer, Mr. Willard Straight, and an assist- 
 ant, Mr. George Marvin, a former teacher of Groton 
 
SECOND LINE OF DEFENSE 95 
 
 School, who had reached Manchuria in the shadow 
 of the name of Theodore Roosevelt. Besides these, 
 there was the young and talented German Consul, 
 Herr Metzger, as counsellor, latent, the British Consul, 
 Mr. Willis. 
 
 But the Japanese imputation is only another indi- 
 cation of the delicate character of the relations that exist 
 almost by nature between Japan, who had no money 
 and of whom it was suicidal for China to accept aid, 
 and America who was a friend in need. The fact is 
 that the Chinese administration at Mukden, then 
 newly established, needed very large sums of money 
 for industrial and other purposes, and for railways. 
 The Peking Government approving, it turned to the 
 United States for help. The administration decided 
 that China must borrow at least thirty-five million 
 dollars American money, fifty million dollars if pos- 
 sible, at once, with ten times that amount behind it, 
 and with this money introduce a new and healthy in- 
 fluence, not only into Manchuria, poisoned by foreign 
 rivalries and invasion, but into northeastern China. 
 These plans were participated in by Yuan Shih-k'ai in 
 Peking, where a foreign policy to meet the necessities 
 of this region, entirely different from what Komura 
 had imagined, or desired, was worked out. 
 
 When this had been decided, but unconnected with 
 it, our Congress restored to China a large part of its 
 share of the Boxer indemnity, a sum almost sufficient 
 to meet the requirements of Manchuria for adminis- 
 trative objects. Tong Shao-yi endeavored to get it 
 assigned for such use. 
 
 This money is largely set aside for the education of 
 Chinese students in America, and the expenditure of 
 it regulated jointly by America and China. A similar 
 
96 THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 arrangement for its expenditure in Manchuria would 
 have lashed America to the mast of Manchurian 
 affairs, because it would have involved payments and 
 supervision of expenditure of the same for about 
 thirty-five years, at Mukden. By involving us in a 
 physical capacity in Manchuria, it would have been a 
 good diplomatic achievement for the Manchurian ad- 
 ministration. This was an innuendo, the suggestion 
 of which was attributed to the "Mukden cabinet." 
 When it reached Peking, the plan was most unwelcome 
 to the American Government, and a sharp diplomatic 
 passage-at-arms occurred. Aside from depriving the 
 Chinese people of the direct benefits of the remission, 
 to which they were entitled, Rockhill, the American 
 Minister, regarded it as a mischievous scheme for en- 
 listing American aid, which, if carried out, would de- 
 feat the aims of Congress. America could not be hood- 
 winked into side issues, and it failed. 
 
 This, however, was only a ballon d'essai, — one of 
 the many plans of Tong and his associates, — among 
 whom were Liang Tun-yen, and behind all Yuan Shih- 
 k'ai. But it was important as another unconscious 
 answer to Komura's assertion that China objected to 
 American money in Manchuria's railways or in any 
 enterprise whatever. In the drama of modern China, 
 Tong Shao-yi has been a political comet whose career 
 in the field of Pacific international astronomy is worthy 
 of the study of those "by gosh" astrologers who so 
 impressively inhabit the observatories of the State 
 Department in Washington. The most spectacular 
 of Tong Shao-yi's acts in connection with Manchuria 
 was the last. It presaged his exit from the stage there 
 and was like unto a rocket's glare. Seeing that he 
 could not get the indemnity money appropriated for 
 
SECOND LINE OF DEFENSE 97 
 
 use in Manchuria, he undertook to revive plans for 
 American aid in Manchuria, which had not been 
 favorably received hitherto on account of disturbed 
 financial conditions in America. They involved the 
 Harriman scheme, the "Manchurian Bank", and 
 other ideas which might save Manchuria to China, and 
 safeguard China's independence and the Open Door. 
 
 In its inception, this was the whole object of Tong 
 Shao-yi's mission, which was now devised to go to Wash- 
 ington, for the purpose of formally thanking America 
 for the remission of the Boxer indemnity, though the 
 mission was accredited to Europe as well as to America. 
 
 In June, 1908, Tong resigned his office of Governor 
 of Mukden, and on September 24, with imperial ap- 
 proval of his scheme, a commission to thank the 
 United States, with a spending allowance of perhaps 
 two hundred and eighty thousand dollars, and with many 
 valuable gifts taken from the Manchu ancestral palaces 
 at Mukden and elsewhere, he set out for Washington. 
 
 Japanese observed that Tong took with him the 
 late American Vice-consul of Mukden as courrier de 
 mission, and by them this scheme also was charged up 
 to the "Mukden cabinet." Before it left Peking, its 
 European opponents and detractors, the Manchurian 
 allies, along with Japan, declared the mission, the 
 object of which was apprehended, to be a political 
 mistake, and its failure to be a foregone conclusion. 
 Its fate seemed to justify their worst prophecies. Its 
 objects were wholly legitimate, praiseworthy, patri- 
 otic, and above criticism. It failed from a combi- 
 nation of Machiavellian circumstances so amazing that 
 it is doubtful whether any diplomat schooled in the 
 vagaries of Peking politics could have foreseen them, 
 and the blame falls mostly upon ourselves. 
 
 V 
 
98 THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 Both Japan and Great Britain took note of the 
 circumstances in which the mission was devised; 
 namely, it was a part of China's first attempt at a 
 foreign poHcy, and it received its encouragement from, 
 and would depend for its success upon, the interest 
 which American finance and the American Government 
 were to take in the subject of China's promised develop- 
 ment. Nothing could have been devised better cal- 
 culated to show us the dangerous mines underlying 
 international relations across the Pacific Ocean. And 
 we were slowly becoming conscious of them. 
 
 The wrecking of China's first attempt at a foreign 
 policy should be exposed. Headed by Tong Shao-yi, 
 the delegation was saluted at its departure by the 
 American military guard and representatives of the 
 powers to whom it was addressed, gathered at the rail- 
 way station. While it was in Japan, Harriman's 
 bankers, Kuhn, Loeb and Company, of which Jacob 
 Schiff was the head, informed the State Department 
 that they were ready to finance the "Manchurian 
 Bank", if satisfactory terms could be arranged. 
 
 On November 22, 1908, when Tong arrived at San 
 Francisco, Japan was ready for him, making it the 
 occasion to arrange with America the E,oot-Takahira 
 agreement, a measure intended "to prevent misunder- 
 standings about China." Among other things it 
 pledged mutual confidence in matters concerning East 
 Asia. The strain between the two peoples of Japan 
 and America had not been appreciably reduced since 
 the California school question had arisen two years 
 before, and signs of friendliness with China were the 
 last thing likely to promote that consummation, es- 
 pecially in connection with anything resembling a 
 foreign policy growing up in China. 
 
SECOND LINE OF DEFENSE 99 
 
 A press correspondent, Mr. Callan O'Laughlin, was 
 instrumental in the execution of this idea, and upon 
 the consummation of the agreement, as a recognition 
 of his services, was made an overnight Assistant Sec- 
 retary of State — the whole a typical illustration of 
 the casual and trifling management of the most im- 
 portant foreign affairs by the Government and people 
 of the United States, Naturally Mr. O'Laughhn 
 resigned at once. Making a farce of government, 
 in the greatest office in a republic, would have deeply 
 humiliated the American people had they understood 
 it. But as the matter concerned "foreign affairs" 
 and "diplomacy", those whose attention was called 
 to it only laughed. 
 
 The news of the consummation of the Root-Taka- 
 hlra agreement was telegraphed by the Japanese from 
 Honolulu to East Asia ten days in advance of its 
 actual conclusion, November 30, 1908, causing a great 
 shock to China, and deranging America's own diplo- 
 macy, if it could be called a diplomacy. In the Grand 
 Council in Peking, an inquiry was made into the basis 
 of Tong Shao-yi's mission, by his enemies and those 
 of Yuan Shih-k'ai, that knelled its end. Liang Tun- 
 yen, active head of the Chinese Foreign Office, stated 
 that the signing of the Root-Takahira agreement at 
 such a time was a rebuff to China and complained bit- 
 terly of it as an unfriendly act on the part of America. 
 "Why," he inquired, "could not America have waited 
 until after Tong Shao-yi's arrival ?" 
 
 The State Department cabled in haste to Peking to 
 explain that the agreement was an additional surety 
 of China's rights in Manchuria. We were of course 
 then obliged to show the document to China, whom we 
 insulted with a note accompanying the text, which 
 
100 THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 expressed the hope that China would recognize therein, 
 "the logical outcome of America's traditional and 
 frequently enunciated policy of friendliness to China, 
 and her desire to see the maintenance of its territorial 
 and administrative integrity." 
 
 We were China's host ; her envoy was the national 
 guest, and she had nothing to do but express her 
 pleasure at our exalted magnanimity. 
 
 But rarely has "diplomacy" with us reached a more 
 refined, if unconscious, "Oriental" cruelty than when, 
 with all the exquisite ignorance of blundering insult 
 we exchanged the signatures of the Root-Takahira 
 agreement just on the day China's envoy reached 
 Washington and became the guest of the Capital. 
 
 What did the agreement say.? Its opening plati- 
 tudes were rather silly. They stated a mutual desire 
 on the part of the two governments "to encourage the 
 free and peaceful development of their commerce on 
 the Pacific Ocean", the determination "to support, 
 by all pacific means at their disposal, the independence 
 and integrity of China and the principle of equal op- 
 portunity", and "to maintain the existing status quo 
 in the region above mentioned." 
 
 The important part was that referring to the "status 
 quo." In the first place in so far as " status quo " could 
 exist, it had only just been set up by war, and there 
 was no longer such a thing as "pacific means" influ- 
 encing the independent and integral status of China. 
 Therefore, Japan being master at arms, and we herein 
 having cried ourselves without the pale, the "status 
 quo" was in her hands. 
 
 W^hat was the "status quo?" The only *' status quo" 
 respecting the objects, because of which Japan hood- 
 winked us into this agreement, concerned Manchuria, 
 
SECOND LINE OF DEFENSE 101 
 
 which was the whole question of China's independence, 
 integrity, sovereignty, equal opportunity, and open 
 door. The only "status quo" was that contained in 
 the Russian basis for Japan's predatory descent upon 
 the Asiatic continent beyond Korea, and behind the 
 Ussuri Province which predatory Russia had seized 
 in 1860, which same basis formed the foundation for 
 the predatory pact which, through our further blun- 
 ders, she wrote with Russia later. This basis was 
 something our State Department knew nothing about, 
 as will be shown. Only Japan knew what the "status 
 quo" was, and she wouldn't tell. There was no other 
 thing by which to identify anything resembling "status 
 quo" The use of the term was a reflection upon our 
 intelligence. At the time the agreement was signed, 
 it had been fourteen years since anything definable 
 as "status quo" had existed in Manchuria — not since 
 the Japan-China War. Manchuria was a word ex- 
 pressive of flux, and its status flux was now that of 
 Japanese aggression. This was not a thing Tong 
 Shao-yi wanted. China didn't want it; she was 
 fighting it, as for life itself. She was seeking a safe- 
 guard and a remedy. She wanted to ward off just 
 what has come to her, hurried on by our ignorant and 
 supine pandering to Japan. In the Root-Takahira 
 agreement we washed our hands, in platitudes insult- 
 ing to China and to our own honor, of everything but 
 peaceable defense of our great doctrine of the Open 
 Door, equal opportunity, integrity of territory, and 
 sovereignty in China. The Root-Takahira agreement 
 gave Japan an open road. It was a piece of hopeless 
 insanity by the American State Department. "No- 
 body home" is a charitable absolution of our Govern- 
 ment for that act. Why should we sign Japan's agree- 
 
102 THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 merits ? Are we the aggressors in China ? Was it our 
 Government that threatened the Open Door, the in- 
 tegrity — sovereignty of China ? The Government 
 of the United States did not know what the Root- 
 Takahira agreement meant. But with a grand air of 
 superior wisdom it explained it to China. Oh, yes, 
 we told her what it meant. 
 
 The "god of Heaven" who had long dwelt with Jap- 
 anese arms seemed to the Chinese to have set his seal 
 on the banners of Japanese diplomacy. Our expla- 
 nation was never accepted by China. Yuan Shih-k'ai, 
 who was sponsor for the mission, had many enemies 
 at court, and was now finally discredited and later 
 was dismissed. In the meantime the great Empress- 
 Dowager and Emperor died, furnishing the occasion 
 for Tong Shao-yi's recall. America made a belated, 
 guilty, and strenuous effort to save Yuan Shih-k'ai, 
 enlisting in the attempt Great Britain, who thought 
 that Japan was going too far in breaking down Chinese 
 initiative and effort at self-preservation, but failed. 
 Tong retired, and for a year and a half remained in 
 seclusion, as did his elder. Yuan Shih-k'ai, so humiliated 
 that he refused to see visitors, including Americans. 
 
 After the State Department's gropings after nothing, 
 and getting much less, from Japan, in the Root-Taka- 
 hira agreement, it devolved upon us to take the initia- 
 tive and organize our defenses of the Open Door. We 
 were the last of the powers to wake up, and we found 
 we had drawn fire from them all, either in South 
 China or North. 
 
 What was it all about? Harriman had shown 
 that both Japan and Russia were striving, each for a 
 modus vivendi, in Manchuria and Mongolia. Al- 
 though the "war party", or an aroused general patri- 
 
SECOND LINE OF DEFENSE 103 
 
 otism in Japan, had made it impossible to realize the 
 plan of the Ito-Harriman agreement, the Japanese- 
 Russian "sphere" was susceptible to some plan for 
 its development. And the protestations of Japan still 
 led our Government to believe that the Open Door 
 would have a place in shaping its future. 
 
 As to China, she now learned from Tong at Wash- 
 ington of Komura's action three years before that 
 terminated the Ito-Harriman agreement, and, thor- 
 oughly disillusioned by the Root-Takahira agreement 
 affair as to the existence of any special patriotic sympa- 
 thy or bond of common defense against predatory 
 nations, which she could tie to, China recognized that 
 she was back again at her beginnings. As for us, we 
 simply saw that we would have to do John Hay's work 
 all over again. 
 
 We now had physical rights in Manchuria. Al- 
 though Japan, backed by Great Britain, had vetoed 
 China's plans for developing China's railway beyond 
 Hsin-min-tun, we had other joint enterprises with 
 her which could not be justly claimed to transgress 
 Japanese interests or prejudices. And there seemed a 
 definite and agreeable possibility remaining to China, 
 notwithstanding the default of the Ito-Harriman 
 plan, of neutralizing, jointly with the powers, the 
 foreign railways in Manchuria, especially through the 
 cooperation of neutral American interests whose 
 political motives none could suspect. 
 
 This was a time of vast conceptions in relations 
 across the Pacific, inspired by the deeds of Japan, by 
 the great ideas left by Mr. Harriman, by Jacob Schiff, 
 and President Taft, as well as men of other countries 
 concerned. These ideas were shared by a number of 
 powerful American statesmen and financiers. 
 
104 THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 The plan of the American Government, which had 
 been developing through the loan complications in 
 China proper and by the demands of China, was 
 working itself out, and America took the initiative. 
 With a view to the practical solution, for all nations, of 
 the Manchurian problem, in which was involved a 
 large American trade which we were endeavoring to 
 protect and expand, our Government proceeded to 
 enter Manchuria through the medium of physical 
 interests, as it had entered China proper. 
 
 Our ability to enter Manchuria with physical in- 
 terests, precisely as was the case in China proper, de- 
 pended upon the circumstance of a previous arrange- 
 ment. And, as in the case mentioned, we had such 
 assets with which to begin. On August 11, 1908, the 
 administrative Government at Mukden had made an 
 agreement providing for the use of American capital 
 amounting to one hundred million dollars for a "Man- 
 churian Bank", and the building of a railway extension 
 from Tsitsihar to Aigun, in Russian-Manchuria, com- 
 pleting a line to Tsitsihar from Kinchou on the Gulf 
 of Chihli, the construction of which she had assigned 
 to the British contractors, Pauling and Company. 
 
 China was anxious to promote measures that would 
 bind together the two parts of Manchuria, claimed as 
 special spheres by Russia and Japan, so as to insure re- 
 gard for the rights of all nations there, thus also securing 
 safety and opportunity and a future for herself there. 
 As our agreement was negotiated through the Amer- 
 ican Consul General at Mukden, who visited the 
 region of the proposed railway, and whose movements 
 were reported to both the Russian and Japanese le- 
 gations in Peking as being in connection with the 
 investigation of the traffic at Aigun, especially in cat- 
 
SECOND LINE OF DEFENSE 105 
 
 tie, that might be diverted into China, both Japanese 
 and Russians later raised the cry, "Mukden cabinet !" 
 Russia claimed the road was intended to capture the 
 whole winter traffic of the Amur. 
 
 But regardless of obstacles and the misgivings of 
 the prophets of calamity, American effort went on. 
 While the attention of the world was focused on the 
 fight over the two railway loans in China proper, Mr. 
 Harriman was still intent on his scheme for a trans- 
 portation belt line of the world. In December, 1908, 
 he had negotiated with Russia's agents respecting 
 control of her Manchurian railway. In June, 1909, 
 while Manchurian schemes were otherwise in abey- 
 ance, Harriman, in Paris, discussed with Mr. Noetzlin, 
 head of the International Wagons-Lits which had a 
 leased railway service to Peking, the Kinchou-Aigun 
 Railway scheme, which had been described to him by 
 Mr. Straight in Switzerland the year before, when the 
 latter carried home the memoranda of his investiga- 
 tions and agreements, and which was being fostered 
 by Kuhn, Loeb, and Company. Harriman sounded 
 Noetzlin on the possibility of organizing an inter- 
 national syndicate to buy up the Russian line in 
 Manchuria, and Noetzlin went to St. Petersburg and 
 discussed it with M. Kokovtseff, Minister of Finance. 
 Kokovtseff had arranged for an agent to meet Har- 
 riman in Vienna to consult about the plans, but Mr. 
 Harriman was then ill and was advised by the specialists 
 whom he consulted in Vienna to return home and 
 make a final settlement of his affairs. Kokovtseff, 
 who was pleased, after long efforts, to find a pro- 
 spective purchaser, agreed to promote the proposal by 
 recommending the sale of the line as soon as he had 
 visited East Asia, which he was about to do. And 
 
106 THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 Noetzlin in August communicated these facts to 
 Harriman at Paris. On September 9, shortly after 
 reaching New York, Mr. Harriman died, and the 
 future of the plan fell to others. 
 
 After the affair of the Hukuang Loan, when con- 
 tentions had reached a state of deadlock, absorbing 
 the attention of the powers, Kuhn, Loeb, and Com- 
 pany, possessing the Tsitsihar-Aigun agreement join- 
 ing its rights with those of the British contractors, 
 Pauling and Company, October 2, 1909, signed with 
 them and with Hsi Liang, the new Viceroy of Man- 
 churia, a preliminary joint contract for the Kinchou- 
 Aigun Railway. 
 
 Notwithstanding the misgivings and recriminations 
 from Japan, this neutral enterprise carried railway 
 development in Manchuria entirely outside the zone 
 of the Japanese Railway and of Japanese vested in- 
 terests, outside the war zone, and into Mongolia. 
 America was to furnish the money. In addition to 
 traversing no vested interests of Japan, it provided 
 for beneficial development of Manchuria to the ad- 
 vantage of all concerned, and carried forward the 
 basis for neutral interference in Manchuria. 
 
 For ten years the Government of Peking had con- 
 sidered every possibility of continuing northward 
 China's railway outside the Great Wall, finished to 
 Hsin-min-tun in 1902, which this scheme now solved. 
 When the American banking group interested itself, 
 the ground was all prepared. Na Tung, Chief Min- 
 ister of Foreign Affairs for China, when approached 
 respecting the execution of this scheme, said signifi- 
 cantly : "Of course I can do nothing in the matter. 
 Hsu Shih-chang, Minister of Communications, is the 
 one to see first." 
 
SECOND LINE OF DEFENSE 107 
 
 One after another stood aside for the project to go 
 forward — a form of comment on Komura's under- 
 standing of China which had become painful to 
 Japanese. When Hsu Shih-chang, who had been 
 called from Mukden to Peking, was approached, he 
 made precisely the same reply, and referred the agent 
 of the American banking group to the Viceroy of 
 Manchuria, Hsi Liang, who, he said, was the one to 
 take action, since he was the only official who could 
 bring the matter to the attention of the Throne. 
 
 Within three days the contract was signed at Muk- 
 den. From the outside it looked as though there 
 was a hand-in-glove confederation of Chinese and 
 American schemes in these plans, with an underlying 
 idea of embroiling Great Britain with Japan in Man- 
 churia, for the benefit of America and China. On the 
 contrary, the combination of American capital and 
 British engineering was seeking an area for legitimate 
 operations, guaranteed by the Portsmouth Treaty and 
 many other conventions. 
 
 They did not have everything their own way with 
 China by any means. The parley with her showed 
 her to be still a difficult bargainer. The Japanese had 
 already once balked this enterprise in the form in 
 which it first came up. But the need of signing be- 
 fore the opponents of China's "policy could interfere, 
 could not deter Hsi Liang from haggling, despite ab- 
 solute orders from Peking, which had its plans clear 
 and knew what terms it wished to accept. Almost at 
 the last moment he made a counter-proposal to the 
 terms offered by the American banking group and 
 Pauling and Company, and held the negotiations up. 
 He twice sent deputies to the agent of the American 
 group after submitting his counter-proposal, and com- 
 
108 THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 plained that his terms must be accepted, because he 
 had telegraphed to Peking that he had signed them. 
 If the American agent did not agree immediately, he 
 would forfeit his office. 
 
 The American agent retorted that, as the Viceroy 
 had changed the only conditions which the American 
 agent had authority to accept, he could not sign. More- 
 over, he had himself telegraphed to America his in- 
 tention to sign that very day, and was in precisely the 
 same predicament as the Viceroy ^ — he, too, would 
 forfeit his place if he did not sign. Both "saved face" 
 in the end. 
 
 These native officers deserved high respect for their 
 efforts in behalf of China. They took no light respon- 
 sibilities. Though rated by America and China as an 
 unenlightened, unadvanced official of the old school, 
 Hsi Liang was a man of courage and considerable 
 dash — saving the violence to immemorial Mandarin 
 dignity. He appreciated China's helpless situation 
 and her need of American capital, of which none could 
 have any fear who had no unjust designs. He ex- 
 ecuted the wishes of the Peking Government in a 
 manner faithful to his lights. 
 
 China was acting with better foresight and decision 
 than she had ever before displayed. What was shown, 
 in her acceptance of American and British aid in a 
 long-cherished scheme for a northern railway, to be 
 China's unprecedented avidity in adopting modern 
 measures of self-defense, confirmed the existence of 
 acute Japanese and Russian pressure investing the 
 Chinese Government in Manchuria. 
 
 The project, in relative importance, was nearly 
 double that of the Hukuang Loan. It was the most 
 ambitious enterprise of industrial China. Its po- 
 
SECOND LINE OF DEFENSE 109 
 
 litical importance was even greater, as will be shown 
 by the political retaliation provoked from Russia, 
 Japan, France, and Great Britain. Europe and the 
 world at once loomed up on our west as before. All 
 the great powers, — Japan and Russia and their 
 respective allies, — whom America had or had not 
 provoked in China proper, were now challenged in 
 Manchuria. 
 
 America now saw enrolled among her antagonists 
 such world figures as M. Izwolsky, the foremost diplo- 
 mat of Russia, and the embattled Minister of Russia's 
 maligned and disparaged Foreign Office; M. Ko- 
 kovtseff, who, as Minister of Finance, was a more 
 powerful officer of state than Izwolsky ; M. Koros- 
 tovetz, Russian Minister at Peking, and the intrepid 
 scout of Russia's second new Eastern Empire; Prince 
 Ito, perhaps the greatest Oriental since Confucius or 
 Genghis; Marquis Katsura, the premier and head of 
 the "war party" in Japan; Count Komura, Minister 
 of Foreign Affairs and the genius of "Greater Japan" ; 
 and M. Ijuin, the glorified consul and clever Japanese 
 Minister in Peking. What we had now done had 
 engaged us with all the great powers, even Germany, 
 though she had less at stake than the others. 
 
 The " Kinchou-Aigun Railway" was recognized by 
 these powers as an alternative scheme to that of the 
 Hsin-min-tun-Fakumen project. Whereas the Hsin- 
 min-tun-Fakumen project had antagonized only Japan, 
 this assailed all the Manchurian allies, and the melee 
 was on, greater than that over the Hukuang Loan. 
 
 Russia and Japan appeared almost to spring to- 
 gether, owing to practically identical action, which, 
 however, originated from different motives. On Octo- 
 ber 12, 1909, M. Ijuin, the Japanese Minister, formally 
 
110 THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 notified China that while not intending to obstruct her 
 plans, Japan would yet maintain her right to be con- 
 sulted regarding projected railways in the region of 
 Japan's railways in Manchuria. While not claiming 
 the right to veto this railway, Japan reserved her 
 decision regarding subsequent action — a diplomatic 
 warning. In this way she stepped aside to allow 
 Russia to come forward. 
 
 Russia followed with similar representations re- 
 garding the Russian sphere in Manchuria and Russian 
 frontier interests, complaining that China had not 
 consulted Russia in the matter. The final blows of 
 this trip-hammer-like opposition were felt by stagger- 
 ing China when the respective allies of these powers, 
 Great Britain and France, sent their representatives 
 in February to make "friendly" representations, 
 "advising" China not to proceed with the Kinchou- 
 Aigun Railway without considering the wishes of 
 Russia and Japan. 
 
 The difliculties of having her own state policy, and 
 of taking vital action in her own behalf, which these 
 great powers had so often urged upon her, were now 
 illustrated by them by smashing blows in the face. 
 
 Japan, who was only resting on her ever-ready arms, 
 was instantly on her feet and in the arena. Ito, now 
 a prince, had officially forgotten the agreement with 
 Harriman, and had become as faithful a servant of 
 Japanese expansion as he had been a loyal opponent 
 of it. Simultaneously with the signature of the 
 Ejnchou-Aigun contract, he became the imperial en- 
 voy to meet M. Kokovtseff, Russian Minister of 
 Finance, to discuss at Harbin the intentions of America, 
 and to prevent neutralization plans for Manchuria, 
 and reach a- broader mutual understanding with 
 
SECOND LINE OF DEFENSE 111 
 
 Russia — an object which Japan had indefatigably 
 pursued ever since Komura had returned from Ports- 
 mouth. 
 
 Russia, who in 1906 had sounded the prospects of 
 seUing her Chinese Eastern Railway, and in 1908 a 
 second time had opened negotiations in New York for 
 disposing of it, had for four months in Wall Street 
 been offering it for sale. Kokovtseff was the pro- 
 moter of this activity, and Russia was therefore ready 
 for any proposition respecting her railway in Man- 
 churia and her interests there. On October 26, 1909, 
 Kokovtseff was at Harbin to receive the proposals of 
 Ito when a Korean assassin murdered the latter on 
 the platform of the railway station before any under- 
 standing was possible. A grewsome note was thus 
 struck by that strange race, the Koreans, who were 
 themselves darkly opposing Japanese advance on the 
 continent. 
 
 Japan, Russia, Great Britain, and France had now 
 placed themselves against the joint Chinese, Ameri- 
 can, and British railway enterprise, and China, over- 
 awed, was looking for some miraculous escape from her 
 dilemma. 
 
 The Department of State was in better working 
 order at this time, being aware of its opportunities, 
 keenly alive to American interests and to the impor- 
 tance of doing everything to avert future wars in 
 China. It was busily engaged in keeping up with 
 American enterprise, and, aware of many of the ob- 
 stacles which the American banking group would en- 
 counter in its railway project, it laid out the tour de 
 force of its diplomatic plan. 
 
 The preliminary agreement for the Kinchou-Aigun 
 Railway, signed October 2, 1909, officially remained a 
 
112 THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 secret. But on the basis of this agreement, together 
 with the proposals of Russia to sell her railways, the 
 restlessness of Japan in connection with the matter, 
 the Ito-Harriman agreement, the anxiety of China, 
 who herself had proposed to purchase the railways in 
 Manchuria, and other facts and circumstances, the 
 American Government, just before Christmas, 1909, 
 formally proposed in terms to the great powers the 
 neutralization of all Manchurian railways by pur- 
 chase and restoration to China, the purchase to be 
 carried out by means of a loan subscribed by the 
 powers. 
 
 This grand conclusion of America's plan contem- 
 plated the largest financial transaction in China since 
 the levying of the Boxer indemnity of three hundred 
 and thirty-four million dollars. It was the biggest 
 political proposition in East Asia since Japan's late re- 
 duction of Russia's eastern or Manchurian empire. 
 It more or less defined the whole idea of the American 
 Government as to what was then necessary in order to 
 safeguard the Open Door and integrity of China, to 
 which the powers all had subscribed. It met the 
 fighting struggle for life of China's foreign policy, and 
 her awakening efforts at self-help. 
 
 The idea was so brilliant that it dazzled the powers, 
 especially Japan and Russia, who thought it the mask 
 of some deeper scheme. It completed Secretary of 
 State Knox's diplomatic plan which he explained 
 January 6, 1910, when he announced: "The proposi- 
 tion of the United States to the interested powers, 
 looking to the neutralization of the Manchurian rail- 
 roads, discloses the end toward which American policy 
 in the far East has been recently directed." 
 
 Our proposals were characterized by expediency, 
 
SECOND LINE OF DEFENSE 113 
 
 safety, economy, and humanity. They were wise, 
 practical, statesmanlike, and timely. They were 
 original as an economic measure for the cure of political 
 diseases, and so exactly suited to draw out and de- 
 termine the trend and blend of international influ- 
 ences, the strength and dimensions of alliances, the 
 direction of international ties in East Asia, the rela- 
 tive strength of Asiatic and European opposition to 
 the Open Door, the possibilities of our Euro-Asiatic 
 problem in the Pacific, and world forces present on our 
 western frontier, that perhaps no better means could 
 have been employed had that been our purpose. Their 
 effect was that of showing clearly all the opponents 
 and all the opposition to the principles to which we 
 were committed in East Asia, and upon which de- 
 pended the welfare of American interests in China. 
 
 On January 5, 1910, the proposal became public. 
 The governments to whom it was addressed then re- 
 plied. Great Britain and France, being allies of the 
 Manchurian powers, Japan and Russia, and having 
 no right of interference, agreed with the proposal in 
 principle, and at once intimated that political and 
 other obstacles must be taken into consideration be- 
 fore aid could be rendered to make it effective. Ger- 
 many, though friendly, enacted the part of caution and 
 replied in a similar manner. 
 
 Followed blow upon blow. Britain not only refused 
 to join in promoting the neutralization plan, but later 
 refused to support China in sanctioning the Kinchou- 
 Aigun Railway contract. On the contrary, it was 
 opposed. Sir Edward Grey, Secretary for Foreign 
 Affairs, when appealed to in behalf of these efforts in 
 the interest of the Open Door, to which his country 
 was pledged, said regretfully: "I can do nothing." 
 
114 THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 Count Hayashi, late Minister of Foreign Affairs of 
 Japan, characterized the American proposal as a scheme 
 for confiscating Japanese interests in Manchuria. Vis- 
 count Aoki, the venerable ex-Ambassador to Washing- 
 ton, shrewdly observed that our proposal was "a case 
 of the guest preparing the bill without consulting the 
 hotel-keeper." (Our interests in the region antedated 
 those of Japan by many years.) This was because 
 America had not consulted Japan beforehand. Baron 
 Goto, Minister of Communications, said the proposal 
 was "nothing new", an observation that referred to 
 the Ito-Harriman agreement and later proposals from 
 Russia, China, America, and other quarters. He 
 added that it would be unpatriotic for Japan to accept 
 it. These were the same words with which the war 
 cabinet of Japan, when it had adopted its plan of 
 expansion on the continent, had disposed of the Ito- 
 Harriman agreement after Komura's return from 
 Portsmouth. 
 
 The Japanese press and many government officials 
 cried patriotism, and invoked the shades of the thou- 
 sands of Japanese heroes who had given up their lives 
 on Manchurian battlegrounds. Japanese expansion- 
 ists, doubtless totally ignorant of the origins of the 
 proposal, were outraged and behaved like caged 
 tigers. Japan virtually answered America that it 
 was for the South Manchurian Railway, — which, by 
 the way, under the signature of Ito, Katsura, Inouye, 
 and others, she had agreed to negotiate for cash, — 
 that Japanese blood and treasure had been expended. 
 Secretary of State Knox, replying to this, said lacon- 
 ically, that he "had always understood it was to 
 punish Russia for closing the Open Door." 
 
 M. Korostovetz, Russian Minister in Peking, dis- 
 
SECOND LINE OF DEFENSE 115 
 
 closed Russia's perturbation by the inquiries: "What 
 is America's whole policy?" "How far will America 
 go?" It was not entirely clear to each individual 
 nation affected what were the whole grounds on 
 which we had acted. Russia feared Japan, and could 
 not tie to America, who offered no explanation, gave 
 no security, and therefore, as she thought, deserved no 
 confidence. She feared, in fact, that this was only an- 
 other emanation from the "Mukden cabinet." The 
 final Russian touch in destructive criticism came from 
 Russia's press when it characterized the proposal as 
 "a fantastic project of the imagination of promoters 
 and contractors" — language referring to the dash- 
 ing American banking group and the insurgent Brit- 
 ish contractors, Pauling and Company. Russia had 
 not been able to sell to Harriman because the man had 
 died, nor to another buyer because she had not pre- 
 viously found one. 
 
 European financiers, who had accepted the spirit of 
 fair play enforced in China proper by the Hukuang 
 Loan denouement, and were anxious to keep commerce 
 as clear of diplomacy and politics as possible, were 
 prepared to support a plan so disinterested, and went 
 so far as to say that Secretary Knox had laid out the 
 way which development in China must follow. 
 
 The anti-Japanese press in Great Britain approved 
 the proposal, and many Britons who had lamented 
 the destructive effect of the Anglo-Japanese alliance 
 upon Great Britain's integrity regarding equal oppor- 
 tunity in China shared the view of a leading paper 
 that America was "the only Western country able to 
 look China in the face without the blush of shame." 
 
 The best foreign sense was just the opposite of that 
 at home, where "muck-raking" journalism and a hatred 
 
116 THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 of the "money power'*, expressed in such terms as 
 "dollar diplomacy", were leading the public to a 
 political campaign waged on the issue of the trust 
 and corporation evil. And it then was played by the 
 organized and subsidized Japanese propagandists and 
 their American clients, among whom it is easy to win 
 sympathy against "Wall Street." What was taking 
 place was the live, fiery substance of future Pacific 
 history-making events, molten in the crucible and 
 waiting for the shock that must give it shape. 
 
 The heat of these frictions could not cool with the 
 important results that followed. Japan and Russia 
 were yet to deliver their replies, which it was evident 
 would be cast by Japan. And by this time there was 
 not much doubt as to what they would be. 
 
 On January 20, 1910, Japan informally notified 
 China that Japan and Russia would concertedly decline 
 the American proposal. China's participation in this 
 measure, she said, was in the nature of an unfriendly 
 act toward Japan. One of the lesser secretaries of the 
 Japanese Legation in Peking was the bearer of these 
 important representations, a slight at which the Chinese 
 were much humiliated. In their embarrassment and 
 fear, they were at first disposed to reproach the United 
 States for what seemed to them to promise no ad- 
 vantageous outcome. Sdeath ! had we not signed 
 the Root-Takahira agreement in her absence and 
 now done this thing that concerned her more than 
 any one, lone-handed .^^ 
 
 Considering the array of forces against them, how- 
 ever, China's ministers continued to exhibit both 
 courage and purpose, and stood by their infant foreign 
 policy as well as by America's plans and efforts. They 
 awaited America's next move, which did not transpire. 
 
SECOND LINE OF DEFENSE 117 
 
 Further information from the American Government 
 was also lacking. Unfortunately, it had nothing to 
 give. Moreover, an embarrassing discovery was made. 
 Russia and Japan, supported by their allies, had 
 severely scrutinized the action of America in seeking 
 the neutralization of their railways by restoration to 
 China. Especially after the obvious failure of the 
 proposal, they made the most of its defects. Among 
 other things they noted that America, an outside power, 
 lacking established railway interests which alone could 
 give her an equal voice in railway questions in Man- 
 churia, and lacking any share in their own railway 
 holdings, had held them up to the world in a scheme 
 for the disposal of those holdings. They noted that 
 the preliminary contract for the Kinchou-Aigun Rail- 
 way, which was America's claim to railway interests 
 which she had to offer in the scheme of neutralization, 
 was an incomplete document, in that it had not been 
 specifically ratified by the Chinese Throne. This was 
 true ; it had been ratified only as a part of an omnibus 
 scheme for general Manchurian development, and 
 without specific ratification, such agreements in China 
 have never been held to be valid. Upon the validity 
 of this agreement, America's entry in a physical capac- 
 ity into Manchuria, giving her a right to consideration, 
 rested. 
 
 As a matter of fact, the American Government had 
 been misinformed. It was under the impression, when 
 the Knox proposal was made, that the provisional con- 
 tract had been ratified by the Chinese Government. 
 The Manchurian allies had marshaled their whole 
 opposition to prevent China carrying the Kinchou- 
 Aigun plan further. Came another sharp fight. Brit- 
 ain, endeavoring to restrain Pauling and Company, 
 
 \ 
 
118 THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 opposed its ratification on her own behalf and that of 
 Japan, for the quietude of Manchuria at all costs. 
 The whole burden of our "plan of state" now bore upon 
 this point. The responsibility of overcoming opposi- 
 tion devolved upon Mr. Fletcher, our Charge at Pe- 
 king, who had carried through the Peking end of the 
 Hukuang Loan diplomacy by which America had 
 gotten into China proper. China had acquiesced in 
 America's plans, but now that they had been repulsed, 
 China was unwilling further to risk displeasure from 
 the powerful Manchurian allies. Fletcher, however, 
 convinced China that imperial sanction to the Kin- 
 chou-Aigun contract was as necessary to China's 
 integrity and dignity in the matter as to America's 
 position, and on January 21, 1910, despite nearly in- 
 vincible discouragement of the Manchurian allies, 
 China issued the necessary rescript of ratification. Thus 
 America was saved from a moiety of her awkwardness. 
 
 On January 22, 1910, upon the heels of this rescript, 
 and in accordance with representations made two days 
 before by both Japan and Russia, these two powers 
 formally rejected America's proposal. Our efforts in 
 common interests, equal opportunity, and the Open 
 Door had vitally failed in the most important theater 
 of international conflict in China. 
 
 Seldom, in Peking, had there been such perturba- 
 tion in our affairs. We were aghast. China was 
 aghast. Liang Tun-yen, the principal officer of the 
 Foreign Office, asked what we were doing. What 
 could we say ? China had seen the plan and approved 
 it, as had Tong Shao-yi a similar proposal in Wash- 
 ington in 1908. But she had no connection with its 
 diplomacy. We left the greatest factors out of con- 
 sideration. Russia's cooperation was the one essen- 
 
SECOND LINE OF DEFENSE 119 
 
 tial, and all signs promised it. At St. Petersburg was 
 Ambassador Rockhill, considered by John Hay our 
 greatest diplomat, next to Henry White, and by far 
 the best American statesman in Asiatic affairs. Knox 
 ignored them both. One reason, there was no co- 
 ordination among our forces, — between our bankers 
 and State Department and with China, — however 
 blamed they were for conspiracy against Japan. The 
 State Department apparently didn't know what 
 Kokovtseff's relations with Harriman and Noetzlin 
 had been, and that he had recommended the sale of 
 the Chinese Eastern Railway on his return from 
 Harbin. If it did, it ignored the fact in its desire to 
 support China in her Kinchou-Aigun Railway scheme. 
 It consequently divided its proposal into two parts. 
 And this was where Rockhill came in. When the two 
 propositions reached St. Petersburg he saw that, as 
 has been pointed out by an English writer (Mr. J. 
 O. P. Bland), they formed "a diplomatic gaffe.'' They 
 offered Russia two things in Manchuria: either neu- 
 tralization of existing railways, or international co- 
 operation in China's proposed railway. There was in 
 this an apparent implication that Russia and Japan 
 were violating the Portsmouth Treaty in that, as the 
 two things were placed in the same category, failure to 
 accept either one or the other would be an admission 
 of obstructing China in her measures to develop 
 commerce and industry in Manchuria. 
 
 Having no instructions to the contrary, Rockhill, 
 seeing the pitfall, used his discretion and first presented 
 only the Russian and Japanese railways feature of the 
 scheme. It was presented as a whole in London, Paris, 
 Berlin, and Tokio, however, and when Russia learned 
 this, she sent orders for inquiries to be made as to 
 
120 THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 what our whole aim was. But as there was nothing 
 to say, all the Manchurian allies were mystified, and 
 the proposal lost weight. 
 
 We failed on the same count as in the Root-Takahira 
 agreement, and as in that, we ended in playing the 
 other fellow's game. But we didn't know what had 
 killed the Ito-Harriman plan, and why it was we 
 couldn't take Japan's continued pre-Komura consent 
 and Russia's continued performance of trying to sell 
 out, for granted. Our intervention in Manchuria 
 confirmed the fact that we no longer had any exclu- 
 sively Asiatic problems, that all problems in the 
 Pacific area were world problems, and that we had 
 been dealing throughout with the confederacy of Eu- 
 rope and Asia. But we were nevertheless producing 
 epoch-making results. American enterprise, inaugu- 
 rated by Harriman, Schiff, and others, and American 
 diplomacy, promoted by President Taft and Secretary 
 of State Knox, achieved definite results. 
 
 First : The effects of the invasion of the Hukuang 
 Loan by America freed France from the obligations of 
 a financial agreement of 1903 with Great Britain, 
 whereby her participation in enterprises in the Yangtse 
 Valley, Great Britain's sphere, was a concession from 
 Great Britain in return for participation in the French 
 sphere, and made her an independent competitor. 
 France, Germany, and America were established in 
 the Yangtse Valley and throughout China proper on 
 the basis of equal opportunity. German, Russian, 
 Japanese, and all other competition was legitima- 
 tized. 
 
 Second: America's action secured for her a commer- 
 cial and political position in Manchuria under the 
 policy of equal opportunity and the Open Door on 
 
SECOND LINE OF DEFENSE 121 
 
 the basis of physical interests similar to that obtained 
 in China proper. 
 
 Third : It confirmed in the minds of the rulers in 
 Peking the possibilities of a foreign policy for China 
 and the dependable support of the American Govern- 
 ment. 
 
 Fourth : It cleared up, to a large extent, the situ- 
 ation growing out of the Russian- Japanese War by dis- 
 covering the true positions of Japan and Russia in 
 Manchuria, and to an extent uncovered their plans so 
 that the world knows where the Manchurian allies and 
 all the other powers stand. 
 
 Fifth : It furthermore showed that America and 
 China were bound together more or less by the same 
 considerations which had previously bound America to 
 Japan : first, by common recognition of the neces- 
 sity to China of independence, integrity of territory 
 and jurisdiction, and freedom of development in trade, 
 to the promotion of which America is committed; 
 and second, by reason of common rewards and re- 
 buffs sustained in defense of the interests of both coun- 
 tries. America in two years had completed her formal 
 entry into China according to conditions established 
 and recognized by the powers. Her action supplied 
 the desired basis for equality of American commerce 
 and trade and the influence of American institutions 
 in East Asia. 
 
 Sixth : It gave foreign affairs in their largest sense 
 to the American people by showing them to be, by 
 tradition, principle, precedent, training, inclination, 
 and policy, in direct opposition to the Empire of 
 Japan which they introduced to the world, and to 
 whose people and interests they ever had been friendly 
 and protective. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 Third Line of Defense 
 
 The situation of China has often been described. 
 But it never has been so illuminated as by the glare 
 which the spotlight action of the Government at Wash- 
 ington was throwing over it. The revelations were 
 disheartening. China was prevented by the Man- 
 churian allies from taking measures protective of the 
 rights of all the treaty nations and preservative of 
 Manchuria, as well as Mongolia, to China. 
 
 But notwithstanding the opposition, under Japanese 
 leadership, America kept on with her enlightening 
 work, using her own peaceful implements of financial 
 and industrial enterprise as against politics and arms. 
 She was blundering in the dark, but as long as she was 
 striking fire it was worth while keeping up her leap. 
 Taking a lesson from the revelations in Manchuria 
 which it had caused, the State Department turned 
 its hands (and feet) to the improvement of certain 
 things of China in general, the benefits of which would 
 be common to all and which the most recent treaties 
 of all the great powers with China had stipulated as 
 an obligation placed upon China to carry out. 
 
 As expressed in the American-Chinese commercial 
 treaty of October 2, 1902, furnishing the basis for 
 what the Government and capitalists of America 
 were about to do, China agreed to adopt a uniform 
 
 122 
 
THIRD LINE OF DEFENSE 123 
 
 currency to improve trade. China's modern develop- 
 ment turned on the question of currency. Upon 
 currency depended the growth of China's credit. 
 With nearly all her natural resources undeveloped, 
 China's greatest need was money, and this need was 
 made acute by the imperative necessity of reform, as 
 shown by the situation which American action had 
 uncovered. China was potentially wealthy, but its 
 Government, especially since the Boxer War, had been 
 practically penniless and insolvent. It was regarded 
 as a question only of time until China would be bank- 
 rupt. In such a case, on account of her debt to Europe, 
 ever increasing, she would have to surrender her finances 
 to the management of a board of control of European 
 financiers, representing the capitalistic countries of 
 Great Britain, France, and Germany. 
 
 Special policies for China's protection and safety 
 such as are embraced in the Open Door doctrine, 
 would be endangered by this, and if America relapsed 
 into traditional disinterestedness, the forces threaten- 
 ing to break up China would operate in spite of the 
 Open Door doctrine. Neither financial control nor 
 the break-up of China was wanted by the great powers. 
 But the only visible chance of averting these calamities 
 seemed to lie in America's anticipating the capitalistic 
 powers of Europe in this by an effort to unite all 
 foreign financial and commercial interests on lines of 
 mutual advantage and welfare. The reform of China's 
 currency, in order to bring about industrial develop- 
 ment and trade improvement, involved the creation 
 of financial order. This called for reform in govern- 
 ment administration, which required money. The 
 survival of China depended on China's having money 
 at once and properly managing it. 
 
124 THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 This was the primer of Pacific poKtics when the 
 World War was germinating. America was fore- 
 armed for the undertaking presented by this oppor- 
 tunity. In September, 1903, President Roosevelt had 
 sent Jeremiah W. Jenks, as a special commissioner, 
 to confer with the Chinese Government regarding the 
 introduction of the gold standard into China. China 
 was approachable, but obdurate. Since John Hay, 
 three years before, had arrested partition of China 
 by establishing among the powers the doctrine of the 
 Open Door, China had carried on a dramatic struggle 
 of peculiar Oriental economic and political strategy 
 against the modern science of money and commerce — 
 a set fight with the money power of Europe. She 
 then began her own efforts at financial reform, but 
 every detail of her struggle was without success. She 
 ignored the currency, and in 1906 founded the Board 
 of Revenue Bank. According to her views, she was 
 now prepared to finance her own loans, but was with- 
 out money, collateral, or national credit. Wrongly 
 directed, her efforts to raise loans and reform finance 
 were bound to fail, and a procession of the foremost 
 oflBcials surrendered the presidency of the Board of 
 Revenue, one after another. The Empress Dowager 
 approved a stamp tax, devised by Yuan Shih-k'ai, 
 but rescinded it the day following, out of fear that an 
 attempt to enforce it would excite disorder. 
 
 Advanced Chinese saw that nothing was being ac- 
 complished, and in 1908 the Empress Dowager sup- 
 ported the policy of affiliation with America, inau- 
 gurated by the sending of Tong Shao-yi to Washington 
 to present China's thanks for the remission of the 
 Boxer indemnity, and to get loans. The formation 
 of this mission was accompanied by the adoption of a 
 
THIRD LINE OF DEFENSE 125 
 
 silver standard and uniform coinage. All shared the 
 fiasco of the mission. 
 
 Strange to say, China's credit steadily rose, owing 
 to European competition for interests in China, 
 accelerated by American effort to get firmly established 
 in China's industrial development. At the same time 
 it further alarmed the foreign bankers. Foreign 
 governments became anxious over the doubt raised 
 by them as to China's solvency, and China became 
 alarmed about her own safety on account of the influ- 
 ence in the country of European finance, which had 
 become the instrument of foreign power, formerly 
 wielded through ''spheres of influence" agreements. 
 "Spheres of influence" had changed to "financial 
 spheres", geographically defined. China needed no 
 hint from non-capitalistic powers like Japan, and 
 even Russia, to apprise her of this. 
 
 China became highly agitated, and in December, 
 1908, the "National Debt Association" was formed 
 by Chinese at Tientsin to pay off China's debt to 
 predatory Europe and save the country. This plan 
 to save China from insolvency attracted foreign atten- 
 tion, as showing China's intellectual bankruptcy : 
 she had no financial experts. It enlisted universal 
 support. The Government, which was looking for 
 a miracle to save it from default, indorsed the scheme ; 
 it was approved by the Prince Regent, and by thirty- 
 two native chambers of commerce, collected consider- 
 able funds, and collapsed. 
 
 Sir John Jordan, British Minister at Peking, speak- 
 ing for Europe, assured China that the powers were 
 not intending to assume control of the finances, but 
 cautioned her to devise fiscal remedies. Foreign 
 financiers were justly apprehensive and tendered anx- 
 
1^6 THE MENACE OP JAPAN 
 
 ious counsel. British, French, and German bankers 
 affiliated for mutual protection, and to withstand the 
 crisis. 
 
 In 1909, failure reached full headway. A report 
 that the powers were about to take over China's 
 finances and partition the Empire swept the provinces. 
 Viceroys and governors, fearing the Manchu Throne 
 had been suddenly overawed by the foreign legations, 
 telegraphed to inquire of the Government what had 
 happened. Suspecting another Japanese political trick, 
 with the possible connivance of the other non-capi- 
 talistic country, Russia, China telegraphed its minis- 
 ters abroad to trace the origin of the report. British 
 interests came forward with a proposal for a British 
 financial adviser from the Indian service, and China 
 was obliged to deny to several nations any intention 
 of engaging such an adviser. 
 
 China's alarm about herself was followed by fear 
 of the consequences of foreign alarm, to satisfy which 
 she attempted to devise a budget. Duke Tsai Tseh, 
 Minister of Finance, unable to audit or control ex- 
 penditures, resigned. The Throne refused his resigna- 
 tion, and then came the most desperate and futile 
 measures of all. First, in defense against affiliated 
 foreign finance and increasing want, China addressed 
 the powers, asking for an increase of her customs 
 rate on imports, which had been one of the issues 
 with Europe and the world delegated to Tong Shao-yi. 
 Although she prepared to abolish internal restrictions 
 on trade, she was unprepared to reform the currency, 
 also required by treaty, so that the powers were pre- 
 cluded from agreeing to increased duties. 
 
 China then, on November 13, 1909, tried to reimpose 
 the stamp tax with stamps expensively made in 
 
THIRD LINE OF DEFENSE 127 
 
 America, and which tad Iain unused at least two years 
 in the Board of Revenue at Peking. But popular 
 opposition, and the veto of fifteen of the nineteen 
 provinces, prevented its execution. She made a 
 futile attempt to force a domestic loan by distributing 
 the bonds pro rata to her officials. Nothing happened. 
 Viceroys and governors ignored the call for financial 
 reports. Recreant, they refused to be coerced, and 
 the Board of Revenue had to send commissioners 
 to make provincial investigations. These were op- 
 posed. Duke Tsai Tseh denounced many provincial 
 authorities and impeached the treasurers of six prov- 
 inces. He issued modernized banking laws, and 
 undertook correction of the unauthorized issue of 
 about ten million dollars' worth of paper currency in 
 the Yangtse Valley, to which for a year the foreign 
 ministers had been calling China's attention, and 
 which had become an obstacle to commerce. 
 
 By December, 1909, the Board of Revenue was in 
 a state of collapse, overwhelmed with suggestions 
 from all over the Empire, culminating in 1910 in sweep- 
 ing recommendations by the two foremost viceroys, 
 who urged the borrowing of millions, the building of 
 trunk line railways in all directions within the coming 
 decade, and the carrying out of the nine years' reforma- 
 tion, that had been proclaimed by the Empress Dow- 
 ager, otherwise China would default. The success 
 of railways in the development of America was given 
 in support of this recommendation. 
 
 Europe and its Asiatic ally, Japan, had brought 
 China to something of a nervous breakdown. Her 
 situation was a matter of the 'greatest consequence 
 to us. We had always recognized a pathological 
 tie with the greatest detached body of the human 
 
128 THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 race, that confronted us on half our frontiers, and we 
 could not remain insensible to its demoralization by 
 outside forces, nor hold aloof from efforts to control 
 them. The future of the Chinese race, closely allied 
 with the destiny of society in America, was a fact 
 burned into us by the exclusion question and other 
 questions. There was a strongly expressed desire 
 in this country that China should triumph in modern 
 civilization and government, and extend her match- 
 less social and human experiment continuous from the 
 remotest times, unbroken — be a pillar of the earth 
 rather than a lost world pouring out of her floodgates 
 upon nations like our own. While we were attempting 
 to forestall the lightnings and the storm, China was 
 shocked by more political developments. On July 4, 
 1910, as a result of the startling diplomacy of America 
 for two years, especially that looking to the neutraliza- 
 tion of railways in Manchuria, Japan secured the 
 signature of Russia to an arrangement excluding out- 
 side interference in Manchuria. Later came Japan's 
 annexation of Korea and subsequent renewed encroach- 
 ments in Manchuria, which long before had superseded 
 the Yellow Hiver as "China's sorrow." On September 
 20, 1910, under the great light from without that now 
 beat upon China, Duke Tsai Tseh, in an audience 
 with the Prince Regent in the Forbidden City, con- 
 fessed the default of all efforts and plans for financial 
 reform, and asked help in effecting reorganization of 
 the Imperial finances, otherwise he must resign. 
 
 Everything showed how timely was China's struggle 
 and how urgent was our aid. China was face to face 
 with the powers. In 1902, she had covenanted with 
 them to reform her currency and failed to do so. In 
 1906, she adopted a nine years' program of reform and 
 
THIRD LINE OF DEFENSE 129 
 
 started out to be a great power, without any banking 
 or fiscal system, without finance, without a real cur- 
 rency, and practically without' a national income. 
 For three years, she had her ministers abroad and 
 others feverishly working on financial reform, espe- 
 cially her Minister in Washington, Chang Yin-tang, 
 who held half a dozen conferences with Jeremiah W. 
 Jenks. But in 1910, without having remedied any 
 of these fundamental defects, she faced her first reform 
 crisis, that of foreign intervention in her finances. 
 
 Chang Yin-tang received secret orders to suspend 
 his investigations. China had been visited by over- 
 whelming recognition of defeat in a lone effort to create 
 a currency and fiscal system. She was practically 
 helpless before the European capitalistic allies, as 
 in 1900 she was helpless before the military allies. 
 It had taken the capitalistic powers of the world, — 
 Great Britain, France, Germany, and America, — 
 just two years to get together and determine China's 
 financial future. She could not longer delay an appeal 
 for neutral outside aid. Though politically wayward, 
 she measurably appreciated the movement against 
 her, and on September 20, 1910, following Duke Tsai 
 Tseh's disclosures, the Prince Regent, with no alterna- 
 tive, afraid of default and of foreign intervention, and 
 in view of the jeopardy of all reform, approved a reform 
 loan, if it could be obtained from America, as was in- 
 tended in 1908, and according to plans worked out 
 by the aid of Chen Chin-tao, a graduate of the Uni- 
 versity of California. 
 
 In her struggle with Western finance, and the Euro- 
 pean-Asian alliance, China capitulated, throwing her- 
 self into our arms to escape. Her question had been 
 variously defined as foreign sciences, arms, foreign 
 
v^ 
 
 130 THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 governmental methods, diplomacy, foreign religions, 
 etc. But necessity determined it to be finance, and 
 economists held that if China did not reform her 
 finances, she was lost. 
 
 Could America again save China from foreign 
 domination and disruption by bringing about for 
 her the creation of a system of finance .^^ At the end 
 of a decade of the Open Door doctrine, after the 
 failure of the neutralization proposal in Manchuria, 
 this was the foremost question of the American 
 State Department. From its standpoint, it was a 
 question whether America might accomplish by the 
 instrumentality of a currency loan what, in 1899 
 and 1900, she had accomplished by the Open Door 
 conventions. 
 
 On September 22, 1910, Sheng Hsuan-hwai, Vice 
 President of the Board of Communications, called on 
 the American Minister at Peking, William J. Calhoun, 
 successor to William Woodville Rockhill, and on the 
 authority of China asked him to telegraph to Wash- 
 ington a request for a currency loan and an American 
 financial adviser. 
 
 Two generations of the powers had waited in vain 
 such an event. A loan of fifty million dollars was 
 conditionally agreed upon. On October 27, 1910, a 
 preliminary agreement was quickly signed in Peking. 
 On October 29, an edict ratified it, and China was 
 committed to the reform of her currency as provided 
 in her treaty, and to employing an American adviser 
 to carry it out. 
 
 But although generations had awaited the event, 
 China's action, as usual, was a signal among the 
 European-Asian powers for another fight. It was a 
 question with them, especially Japan, after the neu- 
 
THIRD LINE OF DEFENSE 131 
 
 tralization proposal of 1909-1910 was disposed of, 
 as to where America would turn up next in China. 
 This, then, was her reappearance, and it was not less 
 surprising than had been America's diplomacy of the 
 year before. It was of more immediate importance 
 because it concerned China's credit. Moreover, the 
 introduction of foreign ad\'isers into China long had 
 been the jealous enterprise of many a Western nation, 
 and in this America appeared to have beaten them 
 all. Since the Hukuang Loan affair, the European 
 groups were reconciled to America ha%'ing due consid- 
 eration in China, but they had grown apprehensive 
 of American leadership, and were opposed to America's 
 special position, not to say what they called "American 
 methods." Japan was now the political leader in 
 East Asia of her Manchurian allies. Great Britain, 
 France, and Russia, and was the ob-vious poUtical 
 successor there of the United States. 
 
 The European groups scrutinized this situation, 
 and then invited the American group to join them, 
 accept their leadership, and avoid contention. The 
 group had once before dechned a si mi lar proposal, 
 sa%Tng it preferred to continue singly in China's finan- 
 cial field, but reconsidered, and adopted the \'iew that 
 the cooperation of the powers was essential to the 
 success of loans and of currency reform. It in^'ited 
 the European groups to a meeting in Paris, where, 
 November 10, 1910, the pre\'ious overtures from the 
 groups for a four-party agreement for equal participa- 
 tion in future loans was signed. The present or cur- 
 rency loan was specially excepted from the body of 
 the agreement, but in the minutes of the meeting, the 
 American group agTeed to European participation, 
 conditional upon China's consent, and stipulations 
 
132 THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 were imposed, leaving the conduct of all negotiations 
 for the loan to the Americans. 
 
 At this stage of American intervention in East 
 Asia, our side had ample experience in its dangers, un- 
 certainties, and risks. Their aim was to improve the 
 situation in China and obviate disorganization in 
 the Pacific, destruction, war, and loss. They were 
 perfectly aware that their actions laid down the lines 
 of another controversy that would arouse the jeal- 
 ousies and antagonism of the powers, especially those 
 which, like Russia and Japan, had benefited most by 
 conditions in the past and would prefer the gains as- 
 sured by a continuation of these conditions. But 
 that was not a consideration to deter them. 
 
 The new compact held out to the European groups 
 the possibility of their participation in a loan which 
 China had granted solely to America, and was con- 
 ciliatory. It defined the fundamentally different posi- 
 tions, as well as the essentially different functions of 
 the American Government and the American bankers 
 from those of Europe or Japan, and in itself was 
 an assurance of non-political and neutral effort for 
 mutual welfare. With these advantages evident to 
 the powers, the fight began. 
 
 Bankers can unite, and the American and European 
 groups, in order to forestall Chinese diplomatic tactics, 
 quickly did so before the negotiations began. Gov- 
 ernments find such a course impossible in the same 
 degree in China, where they have always emphasized 
 their political aims, and have been played by her, one 
 against another. The Government at Washington, 
 obliged to act alone, confined its activity to an effort 
 to secure the appointment at once of an American 
 adviser. Its course was taken from our traditional 
 
THIRD LINE OF DEFENSE 133 
 
 policy, and was based on considerations of equality 
 for all, including China herself. It hoped that inter- 
 national capital would find its way into the loan, and 
 it deferred to the view of the American group that 
 currency reform in China, to be successful, must have 
 the cooperation of the powers. But comprehending 
 the inevitable increase of foreign financial influence 
 in China, fully appreciated by China also, our Govern- 
 ment desired an American adviser independent of 
 foreign financial influence. 
 
 Had the advisership come to America independent 
 of the loan, our Government might have been able to 
 have consummated its desire. But as the European 
 groups were now involved, our Government agreed 
 that no adviser would be chosen without consultation 
 with the American group which had the interest of 
 the European groups in trust. 
 
 China wanted to involve America singly, in some 
 manner, so that her influence would be a dependable 
 foil to aggressive nations. She was working for a 
 precedent that would give her a loophole to independ- 
 ence. Her object was twofold. She desired freedom 
 from supervision by the powers. But respecting 
 money she wanted to escape responsibility for the 
 manner of disbursement and management. Her tra- 
 ditional irresponsibility in this had made it impossible 
 for her to borrow money at home or abroad without 
 a foreign auditor to take care of it. She was going 
 to break this rule if she could. Contrarily, our people 
 took means to elude her in this, and by involving 
 Europeans, guarantee success with harmony and 
 safety. 
 
 But the effect of the action of the American group 
 in taking in the Europeans was to unavoidably under- 
 
134 THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 mine our Government's position respecting the ad- 
 visership. The Chinese saw this, and stored it away 
 for future use. 
 
 The European groups saw that equality in the loan, 
 which had been given them, implied a joint adviser- 
 ship, but having received, as it were, a gift horse, they 
 could not at the moment look it in the mouth. They 
 could not then contest with America her reservation 
 of an exclusive adviser. 
 
 The task of the American Government was to secure 
 from China, without outside interference, the Ameri- 
 can advisership, as China had desired. The task of 
 the American group was to persuade China to admit 
 the European groups to the loan, thereby preventing 
 competition on the loan terms. The scene of action, 
 which had been temporarily transferred to Paris, was 
 shifted back to Peking. 
 
 To the Western world, China is the battleground 
 of nations, where the strong, aggressive, and needy 
 struggle for trade and territory. It had been the 
 bitterest international gridiron in East Asia, since the 
 days of Seoul under the Japanese and Russians, and 
 what political peace and order it had enjoyed were 
 only due to the operation of the principles of the Open 
 Door doctrine. Peking, though larger than Seoul, 
 had not been less petty, murderous, and bloody. But 
 in meanness, and in the size of its international trage- 
 dies, it had rivaled every Asiatic capital from Yokohama 
 Bay to the Sea of Marmora. It had outdone Canton, 
 the first seat of its international relations, in wretched- 
 ness of its contentions. But the influence of the 
 Hay doctrine, cooperated in by the powers, had tended 
 more and more to the elevation of foreign and Chinese 
 diplomacy there, and had developed the latent states- 
 
THIRD LINE OF DEFENSE 155 
 
 manship of some of China's naturally able officials. 
 In those circumstances, it was thought that capital, 
 which had at last invested this battleground, might 
 be able, by industrial development and reform, to 
 solve problems that diplomacy had so far failed in. 
 
 China also understood this, and having obtained 
 the preliminary currency loan agreement, apprehensive 
 of further failures in finance, desired prompt action 
 and called upon America to proceed with the loauj 
 stating she was ready to telegraph her views as to 
 terms. 
 
 Washington was on the defensive, and retorted 
 that the next step was not the conclusion of details, 
 but the confirmation in writing by China of her request 
 for the American adviser. It stated that in consider- 
 ation of China's desires, the American financiers were 
 sending a special representative (Mr. Willard Straight), 
 authorized to take up all financial contentions, but 
 as for other matters, they could be concluded immedi- 
 ately through diplomatic channels, and China was 
 asked, straight out, to name the adviser. 
 
 China demurred. She had never had an active 
 adviser, such as the present plan provided. She had 
 nullified the influence of those advisers she had em- 
 ployed for various services in the past. China evi- 
 dently had not intended a directing adviser, and not 
 at all such an adviser as America had just provided, 
 for example, for Persia, in the person of Mr. Morgan 
 Shuster. 
 
 But something had happened in Peking. About 
 November 15, France informally told China that she 
 maintained the right of participation in the proposed 
 loan, and joint advisership in case advisers were 
 appointed. Japan and Russia came forward, and 
 
136 THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 while they did not impose direct opposition to the 
 application of the loan to Manchuria, yet affirmed 
 right of equality, and required of China an explana- 
 tion of the objects of the loan in application to Man- 
 churia, acts strictly in accord with diplomatic practice 
 in Peking, and totally disconcerting to China's inten- 
 tions. They prevented her ever confirming her request 
 to America for an adviser. Although the European 
 groups had a right to expect participation in the loan, 
 America stuck to her understanding with China, and, 
 before November 29, had twice urged her to confirm 
 her request, and Minister Calhoun was prepared to 
 urge yet more strongly. 
 
 It is to the credit of the official alertness of Japan 
 and Russia, as well as France, that they acted in Peking 
 before China had time to name an adviser. Yet they 
 were but doing their part in the work of Europe and Asia 
 upon our frontiers, the complications and mutations 
 of which revealed more of the possibilities to us of the 
 alliance which those powers had made in the Pacific. 
 
 The American group agent reached Peking and 
 opened the loan terms negotiations, proposing to China 
 the participation of the Europeans. China had not 
 intended this, no more than a controversy with Europe 
 over an advisership. Here were two undesirable 
 propositions from two sources, each one of which gave 
 her an excuse for deferring action on the other, pend- 
 ing the reconciliation of the discrepancies between 
 them by the American Government and the American 
 group. 
 
 It is always necessary for China, ground as she is 
 between the millstones of the powers, to act slowly, 
 lest she find herself reduced to political dust only. 
 She watched the effect of America's insistence and the 
 
THIRD LINE OF DEFENSE 137 
 
 demonstrations of Russia and Japan on one hand, and 
 the European groups and governments on the other, 
 and awaited the outcome. The Europeans sought 
 to come into the negotiations, thinking they might 
 have an opportunity to take the loan away from the 
 Americans. But the American Minister and the 
 American group agent, on instructions, refused to 
 recognize them. China parleyed, and the Washington 
 Government, unable to proceed against her indispo- 
 sition without creating a new situation, sat down to 
 take counsel. 
 
 Two months had elapsed, China refused to act 
 respecting the adviser, and Washington did not know 
 whether she desired American pressure exerted against 
 her so that she might have an excuse for concluding 
 her obligations to America, or whether she was genu- 
 inely awed by the powers. Inquiries showed that 
 the currency loan was opposed by the same complica- 
 tions that had aflBiicted the proposals respecting Man- 
 churia and the Hukuang Loan. 
 
 China could not be blamed for resisting, in view of 
 the intimidation of the Manchurian allies. When 
 we promised participation to the Europeans in the 
 currency loan conditional upon China's consent, China 
 apprehended that she was about to fall into the trap 
 she had planned to avoid. International control of 
 her finances had come. She had a safeguard, through 
 American participation and by American government 
 supervision of American finance in China, yet her 
 understanding with America was threatened with 
 failure. She could not play the bankers against each 
 other, but she played the American Government against 
 the American group. To the former, she said that 
 she could not agree to the American advisership. 
 
138 THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 because the latter urged the internationalization of 
 the loan. When the latter urged the internationaliza- 
 tion of the loan as the only means of success of currency 
 reform, China said she could not agree, because the 
 powers would not accept the American advisership. 
 The infirmity of America's diplomatic position was 
 recognized in Washington, and on November 28, 1910, 
 when the final negotiations with China began in Peking, 
 the governments of Great Britain, France, and Ger- 
 many had, in a night, become tentative participants, 
 and our right of the advisership was sacrificed. 
 
 Although the European groups had agreed not to 
 interfere, their governments could not be refused 
 interference, and the preliminary agreement with 
 China had to be shown in Washington, first to the 
 British and German ambassadors, and then to the 
 French. The admission of America's three capitalistic 
 colleagues to the negotiations was completed. As the 
 leader of the negotiations, America could urge restraint 
 so as not to defeat the loan, which was the main object 
 aimed at, but found it necessary to send a note to the 
 three powers, assuring them not only of participation, 
 but the right of signature of the final agreement. 
 
 It is hard to imagine diplomatic topsy-turviness 
 more bewildering than this. European interests were 
 directed to breaking down the preference given to 
 America. Their financiers proposed a board of ad- 
 visers. This contravened the ideas of both America 
 and China. Thereupon all other forces, capable of 
 interference, concentrated in Peking like rooks. The 
 real interests of the four capitalistic powers favored 
 the loan. But political considerations favored the 
 opposition represented by the Manchurian allies. 
 There was a possibility that the apprehensions of two 
 
THIRD LINE OF DEFENSE 139 
 
 of the latter, Japan and Russia, as to the apphca- 
 tion of loan moneys in a Chinese-American project in 
 Manchuria, would inspire in the other two. Great 
 Britain and France, a disinclination to participate 
 in the Manchurian section of the loan. 
 
 Other influences arrayed themselves against China, 
 America, and her capitalistic partners. These were 
 the separate and peculiar interests to which Japan 
 and Russia were applying themselves, and those of 
 the Chinese reform and revolutionary agitators. The 
 latter, at the time, had a center in the Chinese National 
 Assembly, China's embryo parliament. They agi- 
 tated against foreign loans. The Japanese press 
 commenced a political agitation on the subject. The 
 currency loan, a simple loan for mutual benefit in 
 China, within a month had become a political problem. 
 
 Practical interests determined the solution of the 
 currency loan embroglio, justifying the claim made 
 for America's action from the beginning that it was 
 in the interests of all concerned. America succeeded 
 in dividing the Manchurian allies. Great Britain, 
 for the good of the currency reform cause in which 
 she was deeply interested, exerted her influence upon 
 Japan, her, political ally, and then upon her financial 
 ally, France, thus at the same time reaching Russia, , 
 the ally of France, expressing the hope that those 
 powers would not obstruct a measure for progress. 
 Japan and Russia contented themselves with leaving 
 the care of their interests to Great Britain and France, 
 and with China's assurances that in respect to future 
 loans they would receive the same consideration as 
 other powers. The way was thus left open for their 
 allies, together with Germany, to come into the cur« 
 rency loan. 
 
140 THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 When China's statesmen had accepted this program, 
 Duke Tsai Tseh visited the National Assembly to 
 explain the beneficial nature of the loan, and quiet the 
 misguided patriots from among the people. The 
 responsibility for the trouble fomented among the 
 Chinese agitators was laid upon the Japanese, who 
 were charged by the negotiators with active intrigue 
 among the members of the National Assembly to stop 
 the loan. Pressure was also brought to bear upon 
 Sheng Hsuan-huai, upon whose authority the loan 
 agreement was to be concluded, and then upon Na 
 Tung, long known as a Japanese partisan, who, on 
 the last day of the negotiations, made an effort to 
 embroil the negotiators and wreck the entire arrange- 
 ment. But he was defeated and had to leave the 
 council room. 
 
 Although Russia's interests were regarded as lying 
 in the same direction as those of Japan, Russia remained 
 neutral during the contentions. When China agreed 
 to European participation, and this desired object was 
 guaranteed. President Taft, who had taken a great 
 personal interest in the matter, and the Washington 
 Government, relinquished their expectations of an 
 exclusive and independent American adviser, and the 
 four powers, together with China, worn out with dis- 
 couragements, reached an agreement with remarkable 
 international coordination. 
 
 On April 15, 1911, at America's solicitation, China 
 signed terms for a currency loan from Great Britain, 
 France, Germany, and the United States, and under- 
 took, with the aid of these four capitalistic great 
 contemporaries, broad measures in the form of a uni- 
 form standard currency scheme looking to the material 
 reconstruction of the Celestial Empire, and on June 13, 
 
THIRD LINE OF DEFENSE 141 
 
 in London, England, a financial council of these west- 
 ern powers met to approve it. Of the total amount 
 of the loan, fifty million dollars, five ninths were appor- 
 tioned to China proper, and four ninths to Manchu- 
 ria. Of the Manchurian section, about ten million 
 dollars were set aside for industrial and administrative 
 purposes. 
 
 As there are but these four capitalistic great powers 
 among nations, it may be said that the outer world, 
 thus in fact as so often pronounced in theory, on June 
 13, 1911, established itself in council to sit upon the 
 future of China, and these things, directed to trade 
 and industrial regeneration in China, were a realization 
 of the desires of western nations from the beginning 
 of trade relations in China in the sixteenth century and 
 of the active aims of England, France, and America 
 for about seventy-five years. 
 
 Two centuries before America was discovered. Ma 
 Tuan-lin, the Chinese, wrote the whole story of China's 
 money. In the seventeenth century a successor mod- 
 ernized his work. In 1910 it was still modern and 
 showed that the currency mediums of China were 
 tokens for exchange and not fixed weights or measures. 
 No progress was made until the great powers inter- 
 vened, and America, by her aid, in 1911 placed China 
 among the currency reform nations of the world, as 
 she had placed her upon a course of reform also respect- 
 ing opium. 
 
 This manner of ours of working in our own field, 
 with our own implements, with almost no knowledge 
 of diplomacy, won the nickname in our own country 
 of "dollar diplomacy." Our success was due to good 
 intentions, main strength, and awkwardness, by which 
 were curiously fulfilled the early promises by our presi- 
 
142 THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 dents, of the good services of American gold, made to 
 Siam, China, and Japan in connection with trade privi- 
 leges. In 1904, Japan first won our gold in quantity, 
 when she secured a war loan, to the chagrin of Russia. 
 Our gold now went to China, to the chagrin of Japan. 
 
 Our Government made one important concession 
 in order to bring about an agreement. In deference 
 to the European groups, the advisership was to be 
 neutral, and China became satisfied that America 
 should accompany the loan with an adviser of what- 
 ever nationality she deemed expedient. The groups 
 jointly named an adviser from a country not concerned 
 in the loan, and his appointment was left to the Presi- 
 dent, by reason of our right in the original agreement 
 with China. But in foregoing the advisership, and 
 what would have been a diplomatic feather, the 
 American Government, after another complicated 
 and at times very doubtful struggle, emerged with 
 success, and with the renewed confidence of the Chinese. 
 It was said that not even the remission of the Boxer 
 indemnity so convinced China of the disinterested 
 nature of America's motives in a practical effort to 
 promote Chinese material reform, as did this concession, 
 made in order to secure international harmony. 
 
 By the currency loan, a new force was created in 
 China from the four capitalistic powers of the world 
 that may be called the capitalistic allies, whose inter- 
 ests, based upon equality, are naturally antagonistic 
 to those of special rights represented by the combina- 
 tion under the name of the Manchurian allies. A move- 
 ment by foreign interests had appeared that was 
 more favorable to China than any existing hitherto. 
 China's acceptance of the terms and conditions of 
 this most important reform was attributed to the 
 
THIRD LINE OF DEFENSE 143 
 
 Open Door doctrine, and it was the first response show- 
 ing the effect of the American doctrine upon her poHt- 
 ical hfe. 
 
 It was an awakening for America, since, by her 
 activity in this, she became an important financial 
 ally of China and a member of the foreign financial 
 council of China. There was reason to feel that some 
 of the errors of American diplomacy had been redeemed. 
 The object attained respecting Manchuria, to which 
 four ninths of the loan proceeds were to be applied, 
 realized in part what had been aimed at in the defeated 
 neutralization proposal. 
 
 The signing of the currency loan was the result 
 of President Taft's and Secretary Knox's plan of 
 state in the interests of the Open Door and integrity 
 of territory and sovereignty in China. It was an 
 extension of the pledges of the powers to these prin- 
 ciples. Not since the delegation by China of the 
 American Minister, Anson Burlingame, as her special 
 envoy to the West, had China relied upon any foreign 
 agencies. In American relations with China, a wide 
 gap since William H. Seward and Anson Burlingame was 
 thus bridged by William H. Taft and Philander C. Knox. 
 
 But the honest efforts of America could not save 
 her from the suspicions and jealousies of the aggressive 
 powers. "Dollar diplomacy" of course was despised 
 among the Manchurian allies, and was taken up espe- 
 cially in Japan, where it was made a term of reproach. 
 This had its effect among partisans at home in America, 
 where it was adopted in its new meaning by senti- 
 mentalists and other opponents of the Government, 
 and is still remembered by those whose sentimentalities 
 are too vital to allow of disturbance from the evolution 
 of facts. 
 
CHAPTER Vni 
 
 Russia and Japan 
 
 And this had been stirred up since the Portsmouth 
 Conference ! Foreign affairs, full blown, came, for 
 us, in the quarter that fired the imagination of the 
 English historian of warfare. Creasy, when he proph- 
 esied in 1851 "the conquest of China and Japan by 
 the fleets and armies of the United States." In two 
 years, in fact, through the Pacific, we had a system of 
 foreign affairs elaborate as our unlimited and ungov- 
 ernable influence in the world. We were not only 
 entangled with Europe and with Asia in the Pacific, 
 but with the European-Asian alliance there. 
 
 In 1907, America's pohcy in the Pacific was receiving 
 the sneers of Europe, especially of Britain and Russia, 
 and was laughed at in Tokio and in Peking because 
 it had no kind of physical backing. At that time we 
 were the only great nation that had missed the message 
 of our own naval captain, Mahan, of the importance 
 of sea power, though we received a more respectful 
 consideration from the world with the inauguration 
 of the Panama Canal project, and when the Battle- 
 ship Fleet in 1908 rounded the world. Thereafter 
 it became impossible for Great Britain to ignore the 
 obvious effects arising from American master excava- 
 tions and herculean sea-works aimed at merging her 
 
 144 
 
RUSSIA AND JAPAN 145 
 
 two great oceans and making one stage for foreign 
 affairs, and her lead was followed by others. Euro- 
 peans rightly told Roosevelt the hunter that these 
 things were the two great deeds of Roosevelt the 
 President. 
 
 Taft then took a position even in advance of Roose- 
 velt, bringing about a diplomatic battle centered in 
 China, one of the most significant, as actually opening 
 the struggle of the two civilizations in the Pacific, 
 that ever occurred. Begun in 1909, on the lines of 
 Taft's plan of state, in a fight with Japan's European 
 allies for physical footing in China as physical backing 
 for support of American policy, it was carried to Europe, 
 and developed into a movement to oppose the prin- 
 ciples of Japan's plan of expansion and continental 
 empire, and of Europe's Asian diplomacy in China 
 and the Pacific, which was holding Japan in its arms. 
 
 These were the most important problems that had 
 occupied Europe and America since Bismarck and 
 Moltke, and indeed Napoleon. Taft and Knox, on 
 one hand, and Katsura and Komura, on the other, were 
 in a sense the chief contestants in this battle of what 
 may be called the foremost political griefs of civiliza- 
 tion — the fate of the greatest civilized nation of 
 which anything is known. 
 
 By 1910, Great Britain recognized that America 
 was moving the enemies of China and of the Open Door 
 powers from their base of special interests, and that 
 the American Republic, with Canadian, Australian, 
 and New Zealandic support, would hold the balance 
 of power in the Pacific for safeguarding the natural 
 working out of the relations of the two civilizations. 
 Britain then supported us in our latest measure, the 
 currency loan. It was shown that there was a 
 
146 THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 sense in which Creasy in his prophecy of American 
 power was right. It was possible for a combination 
 of influences, such as this, to hold the balance of power 
 in the Pacific, at least during the whole formative 
 period of East Asia. The year 1911 brought a 
 recognition of this, both to Great Britain and to 
 America. ' 
 
 But this was a fulfillment, the character of which 
 would have surprised the prophet. America's con- 
 quest had not been one of arms. In five years our 
 superiority in the carrying trade of the Pacific, which 
 had provoked Creasy 's declaration, was ended, and 
 our cultural influence began its ascendancy. It was 
 naturally followed by statesmanship in East Asia, 
 which, well suited to conditions, had brought us safely 
 through the treaty period; when Japan was opened, 
 China was brought into diplomatic relations with the 
 world, Korea was opened, and the Open Door doctrine 
 was safely set up. We were now on the defensive. 
 And it was the fleets and armies of Japan, not of the 
 United States, that were in military control of "China 
 and Japan" and the Pacific. They were backed by 
 the military forces of Europe, against which we had 
 only our diplomacy. 
 
 When these alliances began we realized that, as in 
 the past, we had only moral force and reason to lay 
 in the balance. The Anglo-Japanese alliance the first, 
 was disturbing. With those of Russia and France, 
 and their successors, they showed how the power of 
 the fleets and armies of Europe was transferable across 
 the whole African and Asian world, and could be spread 
 upon the Pacific, along the American frontier, even 
 though these fleets and armies never left their Atlantic 
 stations. 
 
RUSSIA AND JAPAN 147 
 
 Creasy had not dreamt of this. The figment of his 
 dream was now the steel of our opponents. And 
 important as was our achievement in the currency 
 loan, it was the last, as I will show, and, as in the 
 case of our outlying military posts in the Pacific, our 
 unsupported diplomatic missions, and unfinished gov- 
 ernment enterprises of all sorts, only a source of weak- 
 ness and danger instead of a strength. 
 
 Perhaps the only obstacle to following up our suc- 
 cesses was the lack of diplomatic resources. There 
 was more happening on the other side of the fence 
 than our Government and its people were aware of. 
 We had done things really great in their way, but our 
 opponent, Japan, was keeping pace; she was the 
 leader of a coalition against us, and was passing us. 
 We had made of her, whom we had first aided in her 
 war with Russia, an enemy. She took from us her 
 own enemy, Russia, who had long been our friend, 
 making enemies allied. 
 
 Bound by its islands and coasts to Russia, we have 
 the vast Alaska, which we received from Russia in a 
 most happy manner, much to her satisfaction and 
 relief. How could we lose Russia ? 
 
 Large commercial and social relations with Russia 
 across the Pacific, anticipated when Perry McD. 
 Collins visited the Amur as our first commercial 
 agent there and endeavored to unite the two continents 
 by land telegraph with communications across Bering 
 Strait, never materialized. The telegraph was sur- 
 veyed but never built. And after Alaska became 
 ours, a railway often planned suffered the same fate. 
 A fur trade, built up in Kamchatka and at Nicolaevsk, 
 did not prosper long. A Puget Sound-Siberian steamer 
 service, and an American-Russian company to fish 
 
148 THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 and trade on the Siberian coast, succumbed. Russia 
 long had endeavored to interest American capital in 
 Siberian development. We were prejudiced against 
 her government and afraid of her laws. So when her 
 war with Japan came, we had made no more headway 
 in our relations with Russia than in the Asiatic problem, 
 and American sympathies were with Japan. It was 
 in this situation that Russia pointed out to us, in 1904, 
 when we aided Japan with our finance, and in 1905, 
 when Japan gained her paramount position in East 
 Asia, that America was now irrevocably involved in 
 the outcome in China, and in defense by arms of her 
 interests in the Pacific. 
 
 The truth of this was shown from the date of the 
 interference of America to make peace. In 1905, 
 Marquis Ito communicated to President Roosevelt 
 through his agent, Mr. Kaneko, Japan's desire for 
 American intervention to stop the war. Roosevelt 
 could not have refused. Such a request, together 
 with the interests of America in the Pacific, required 
 that she assume the foremost position among the pow- 
 ers there. And America's real foreign affairs, as they 
 have shaped themselves "for the next five centuries" 
 — to use the words of John Hay — began. It began 
 with the disaffection of our oldest friends in East 
 Asia : Japan and Russia. 
 
 Strange as it may seem, after peace was signed by 
 Russia and Japan, it became the first problem of both 
 to keep apart. This was because of the powder maga- 
 zine called Manchuria. Thus the first act in the drama 
 of the "five centuries." But Japan, after peace, 
 must make a political arrangement of the powers in 
 East Asia agreeable to her interests. To do this 
 she had to traverse the interests of China and America, 
 
RUSSIA AND JAPAN 149 
 
 and in a measure, of her allies. In fact, she perceived 
 that her natural ally in this was Russia, since Russia's 
 interests, like her own, were opposed to those of the 
 Open Door powers. As she had renewed the Anglo- 
 Japanese alliance, which had been directed against 
 Russia, Russia therefore could not hold out any promise 
 or encouragement of joint cause with Japan in future. 
 But as Britain, her ally, had also the need of a political 
 arrangement on her Russian frontier for mutual inter- 
 ests, ajar stood a door to ultimate success. 
 
 It was not apparent to Japan until after she had 
 received, by the Portsmouth Treaty, certain secret 
 information to be mentioned later, that the renewal 
 of the Anglo-Japanese alliance three weeks previously 
 had complicated her political task, and stood in the 
 way of her opportunities. When she saw this, she 
 determined to reach an understanding with Russia. 
 First, therefore, in the great diplomatic battle between 
 America on the one hand, and Japan and her allies 
 on the other, comes Russia's part with respect to 
 Japan. 
 
 Two years before the Portsmouth Treaty, General 
 Subotitch, first Governor of Port Arthur, recommended 
 to General Kuropatkin, Minister of War, the liquida- 
 tion of the whole of Russia's Manchurian interests, 
 including the railways, and retirement to Siberia, 
 so as not to come into conflict with the advance of 
 the Japanese through Korea, and the active advance 
 of the Chinese from Shantung and Chihli. Like a 
 Siberian and Manchurian convict, Russia, from the 
 day the peace was signed, for four years tracked her 
 way fruitlessly through the wide wastes between 
 Occidental and Oriental diplomacy, finance, and eco- 
 nomics, for an avenue of escape. The story of this 
 
150 THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 pilgrimage, entirely hidden from the world, and ending 
 only when American diplomacy was defeated in Man- 
 churia, tells how we lost Russia and Japan. 
 
 Russia knew the reasons for remaining apart from 
 Japan. Japan, guided by the conservatism and anxie- 
 ties of Marquis Ito, with respect to too close intimacy 
 with the Russian frontier before Japan could recuperate 
 from the war, rushed to the solution with the Ito- 
 Harriman agreement, signed in Tokio, October 5, 1905, 
 for the transfer of the Japanese railways in Manchuria 
 to the American financier, Edward H. Harriman, on 
 a joint working basis, thus placing a neutral power, 
 America, between herself and Russia. This was the 
 first neutralization scheme. 
 
 Came Komura to Tokio (from Portsmouth, New 
 Hampshire), from whence date two Japans. He went 
 dead against Ito. Komura said Japan must expand 
 on the continent in China, and this expansion had 
 suflScient political basis only in the rights which Japan 
 had acquired from Russia by coming into possession 
 of a share of her railway. Japan could not divide her 
 railway rights with Harriman, or any one; she must 
 cling to all she had acquired in order to share all the 
 rights and advantages enjoyed by Russia. And she 
 must not be embarrassed by American interference. 
 Russia must be supported, and made to cling to all 
 she held and had claimed in Manchuria, so as to give 
 a basis for Japan's continental expansion. Japan 
 could safely trust to the future to settle with Russia. 
 Japan therefore abandoned the Ito-Harriman agree- 
 ment, and thereafter stood for friendship with Russia, 
 not evasion, and she began a four years' siege of Rus- 
 sian confidence, first blowing hot, then cold, now angry, 
 now conciliatory. 
 
RUSSIA AND JAPAN 151 
 
 Russia was nonplussed at Japan's intentions, not 
 knowing precisely the consequences of what was 
 going on, and unwilling to admit the principle of Japan's 
 practical enjoyment of her own peculiar rights in China. 
 She avoided a political understanding with Japan, 
 shunning it as America shuns European entanglements. 
 Thereupon, because of Japan's pertinacity, Russia was 
 confronted with the problem of stopping the Japanese 
 advance across Manchuria, at her very border. 
 
 During the four years mentioned, Russia many 
 times escaped embarrassing relations, being once 
 shielded from the inevitable outcome, as I will show 
 in its full significance, by an assassin. All the time 
 her foremost ministries were working on the burning 
 question of segregation. The Ministry of War was 
 at work on the new strategic problem of Russia in 
 East Asia ; the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was in- 
 volved in the political problem ; and the Ministry of 
 Finance was occupied with the economic problem. 
 
 The work of the Ministry of War was simple. Two 
 opinions prevailed as to the problem of avoiding Japan. 
 The first favored a railway by way of the northern 
 extremity of Lake Baikal, along the most ancient 
 Chinese-Siberian boundary, to Habarovsk and Vladi- 
 vostok, to take the place of the Chinese Eastern Rail- 
 way in Manchuria, now at the mercy of Japan ; the 
 progressive view being satisfied with the proposed 
 Amur Railway, following the existing boundary along 
 the north shore of the Amur River. The Ministry of 
 Foreign Affairs was completely absorbed in treaty ques- 
 tions with foreign powers in Manchuria. The Min- 
 istry of Finance was in charge of all Russia's indus- 
 trial, as well as financial, interests in East Asia, and 
 upon it fell the responsibility of actually solving the 
 
152 THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 entire problem and relieving Russia of the burden of 
 her Japan-wrecked, Pacific empire. 
 
 In 1906, the Army Council (sitting in St. Petersburg 
 since the close of the war) decided in favor of promoting 
 the Amur line, so that in case of need the Chinese 
 Eastern Railway, Russia's Manchurian line, which 
 could not be successfully defended, could be abandoned. 
 This was approved by the Government, or Czar. And 
 the Chinese Eastern Railway was for sale. As I 
 have already intimated, the Russians first looked for 
 a "rich uncle" in America. 
 
 In 1907, the Duma was at once asked to sanction 
 an appropriation of one hundred and fifty million 
 dollars for the Amur Railway. The disposal of 
 Russia's Manchurian railway was discussed by the 
 Duma, and on account of the loss on it, annually, of 
 about (gold) five million dollars, the principle was 
 emphasized that imperial money should be expended 
 but for one strategic railway project, and that if the 
 Amur Railway were decided on, the outlay on the 
 Manchurian must cease. 
 
 When the matter reached this state, creating a na- 
 tional opinion in Russia apparently in harmony with 
 the Government's predisposition, Japan became ap- 
 prehensive, and, in February, 1907, approached Russia 
 with the view to an understanding. Overtures were 
 made at St. Petersburg by Baron Motono, the Japanese 
 Ambassador. Having herself mistakenly essayed dis- 
 posal of a railway on which her policy of empire was 
 based, she saw in Russia's course the cutting away alto- 
 gether of the easy foundations of her future on the 
 continent of Asia. 
 
 In March, 1907, the deputies in the Duma, of whom 
 the foremost advocates of the Amur Railway were 
 
RUSSIA AND JAPAN 153 
 
 the Siberians, led by Professor Xekrasoff of Omsk, 
 supported the project of selling the Manchurian, 
 and applj^ing the proceeds to the Amur Railway. 
 The latter determined upon, the former became super- 
 fluous. Motono's advances accompHshed nothing. 
 
 Russia understood that her retention of the Man- 
 churian railway and insistence on her contractual 
 rights in it, as well as other agreements, only gave a 
 more firm and secure foundation for Japan's continental 
 empire, and that this could be avoided only by the 
 transfer of those rights to neutral powers, who could 
 bestow upon them an interpretation more favorable 
 to China than that which she had established. This 
 had been worked out at Portsmouth. Russia, hope- 
 lessly behind in development in East Asia, and dogged 
 by Japan, was cherishing the project of turning over 
 her railway to a neutral holder, in order to create 
 a barrier against Japan, and had worked out the prin- 
 ciples of disposal. This was the second neutraliza- 
 tion scheme. 
 
 In September, 1907, the Ministry of Finance, under 
 M. Kokovtseff, sent Ivan Shipoff, its ex-chief, to investi- 
 gate the whole economic situation in East Asia with 
 reference to the salvation to Russia of her interests 
 in that region. The investigation lasted three months, 
 and the consequent renewed discussion of the project 
 of sale of the Manchurian railway brought out in the 
 Russian press the delicate point of segregation from 
 the Japanese, at which point the discussion was stopped 
 for prudential reasons. The pressure of the Japanese 
 into Manchuria, and even upon Russia's Siberian 
 border, raised the question among Russians of another 
 war with Japan, and the unadvisabiKty of withdrawing 
 from the Manchurian railway, for military as well 
 
154 THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 as political reasons, unless Japan would withdraw 
 from her railway. 
 
 In 1908, thoroughly alarmed at this now formidable 
 menace to her interests and ambitions, Japan called 
 her Manchurian lieutenants to Tokio and issued orders 
 to conciliate the Russians. 
 
 Now came the entanglement of all the powers in 
 the question. Pending solution of her Manchurian 
 difficulties, Russia, in conformity with her claims of 
 right in the matter, held herself obliged to administer 
 civil affairs in her railway territories in Manchuria, 
 thus coming into conflict with the treaty powers be- 
 cause of equal rights which China had granted them 
 in opening Harbin and other places in Russia's railway 
 territories to international trade. Japan herself had 
 secured the opening of two of these places, and thereby 
 directly established in them the equal rights of the 
 powers. On account of the Open Door policy, America 
 was the first to assert the rights of the powers under 
 the treaty, and the sovereignty of China in Manchuria 
 as against that of Russia. 
 
 Japan welcomed America's stand, because it forced 
 Russia to defend her rights, and therefore Japan's 
 rights, before the tribunal of the powers, which would 
 throw light upon the mutual interests of Russia and 
 Japan. Russia had to show cause for exercise of 
 sovereignty in Manchuria, and there came the dis- 
 closure of one of her secret agreements with China 
 which, by the secret minutes of the Portsmouth Treaty, 
 had become the property of Japan. She made known 
 "Article VI" of the Russian-Chinese contract of 1896 
 for the building of the Manchurian railway. This 
 secret article gave the railway (Russia) "absolute and 
 exclusive right of administration in the territories 
 
RUSSIA AND JAPAN 155 
 
 attached to the Railway." This was Japan's legacy 
 from Portsmouth, New Hampshire, exchanged by 
 Russia, in secret, under America's nose. When Russia 
 gave it to us, due to our opposition, it was as a diplo- 
 matic high explosive, let loose in an identical note from 
 M. Pokotiloff, Russia's Minister at Peking, to the 
 powers at the beginning of the year. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 Russia and America 
 
 It was the first great revelation resulting from 
 America's new policy. It was the beginning of our 
 great blunders. Japan was steadily beating us in 
 detail, dispersing the forces favorable to us without 
 our knowing it. She had been working on Russia 
 for several years before we uncovered her trail, and 
 then we did not know it was her trail. She had her 
 arms with her, but diplomatic tactics was the only 
 weapon she needed for checkmating us, and accom- 
 plishing her ends. It was the race of the giant and 
 the pigmy, and the pigmy was winning, hands down. 
 
 Russia's disclosure was of immense advantage to 
 Japan, who had been waiting for it, and now began 
 an even heavier diplomatic battering of Russia. 
 Though Japan had assisted in raising the question, 
 she immediately reversed her position, notifying her 
 officials and subjects in North Manchuria that the 
 right of administration of the territories attached to 
 the Russian railway belonged to that railway. Then, 
 on February 13, 1908, she informed Russia of what 
 she had done, and at the same time asked Russia to 
 recognize the similar right of the Japanese railway ! 
 
 Japan had been waiting two years to accomplish 
 this. 
 
 166 
 
RUSSIA AND AMERICA 157 
 
 On February 15, 1908, our Government, apparently 
 densely ignorant of the consequences of the game, — 
 and through having no conception of what was going 
 on, and no idea or plan, being unable to recognize 
 "Article VI", — warned Russia that persistence in 
 her administrative efforts would raise treaty questions, 
 in which case America would have to assert her rights. 
 Rockhill, our Minister at Peking, on orders from Wash- 
 ington, conveyed this message to the Russian Minister, 
 M. Korostovetz. As by a "lightning before death'* 
 we hesitated, adding that America did] not wish to 
 cause Russia trouble in the matter. But we were 
 lost. 
 
 On February 21, 1908, Russia replied to Japan's 
 request for reciprocal recognition of authority, of 
 exclusive and absolute administration in the rail- 
 way territories of South Manchuria, and said that she 
 was prepared to take proper steps when the occasion 
 arose. It showed Japan that Russia had determined, 
 if we persisted in our inconceivable but very real and 
 bootless gaucherie, that she would give us what we 
 deserved. This was interpreted by Japan as an affirm- 
 ative, and was sufficiently equivocal neither to bind 
 Russia nor obstruct Japan. Simultaneously, the Jap- 
 anese Consul General at Harbin gave out the state- 
 ment : "If Russia insists on building the Amur Rail- 
 way, it can only be interpreted as meaning that Russia 
 is preparing for another war, whereas she ought to be 
 satisfied with the Chinese Eastern Railway." Japan 
 was determined that Russia adhere to her railway and 
 its rights. 
 
 In March, 1908, Russia was in such complications 
 with the powers, headed by America, and pressed 
 so hard by Japan, that she complained to us of our 
 
158 THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 refusal to recognize her authorities at Harbin, the chief 
 point of conflict with the powers. On April 3, 1908, 
 America pointed out that Russia was exercising sov- 
 ereignty in the Empire of China through the instru- 
 ments of a bank and railway company (Russo-Chinese 
 Bank — Chinese Eastern Railway Company), which 
 was illegal and inadmissible. Russia's diplomatic 
 position was so weak, we were so merciless, and she 
 was so intimidated by Japan, that she permitted her 
 Foreign Office, which was incensed against us, to work 
 at loggerheads with her Ministry of Finance, which 
 hoped to stay the political onslaught until it could 
 dispose of the railway which, if sold to us, would solve 
 the danger from "Article VI" and create a buffer 
 region between Russia and Japan. Seeing this, Japan 
 whipsawed the Russians. Korostovetz, from Peking, 
 warned his Government of its anticlimax in permitting 
 the two ministries to work at loggerheads. 
 
 Japan had now in operation an organized, intensive 
 program for consummating, by "Article VI", the 
 principle of a division of sovereignty in Manchuria, 
 something which Russia in thirteen years had failed 
 to do, and which Japan, by the Russian-Japanese War, 
 was responsible for preventing. 
 
 While negotiations were going on between Russia 
 and America, Japan's semiofficial newspaper, The 
 KoJcumin, taunted Russia with giving way to America 
 regarding "Article VI", and boasted that "Japan's 
 jurisdiction in South Manchuria is more strongly 
 established than Russia's in North Manchuria." 
 Japan's attitude was highly assertive, and indicated 
 a disposition to establish Japanese authority in Jap- 
 anese Manchuria, entirely independent of any prec- 
 edents or agreements. Japan's policy actually, for a 
 
RUSSIA AND AMERICA 159 
 
 year now, had been based upon her advantages in 
 hand in Manchuria. She had taken from Russia 
 that which, in making war, she had denied Russia, 
 namely, special rights in Manchuria, and was supported 
 in this by her alliances. 
 
 In May, 1908, Japan sent Baron Goto to St. Peters- 
 burg (Petrograd), to sound Russia on her attitude 
 toward "Article VI" and the possibility of arriving 
 at an understanding. Russia held aloof, eluding her 
 solicitous neighbor by appointing negotiations to be 
 taken up between the two railways in Manchuria. 
 Mr. Tanaka, director of the Japanese Railway, went 
 to Harbin, — Japan always went to Russia, — where 
 Russia refused to consider economic and commercial 
 questions with railway officials, as she had refused to 
 discuss political questions with envoys. Mr. Tanaka 
 departed in disgust. Both missions failed; Russia 
 was again relieved of Japanese importunity. 
 
 During the year of discussion between America 
 and Russia, the other nations were not idle. China 
 was struggling in Manchuria for her sovereignty, as 
 in her Kinchou-Aigun Railway scheme, her mission 
 to America to get funds for industrial and administra- 
 tive purposes there, her efforts to bring about the 
 formation of an international syndicate to take over the 
 railways, and her endeavors to get agreements from 
 both Japan and Russia. Russia arranged with her a 
 "formal interpretation" of the now famous "Article 
 VI", intended to make the authority of the railway 
 and that of the Russian Government agree, so as to 
 satisfy the objections of the Open Door powers. On 
 May 10, 1909, it was signed, and China understood 
 it to be a plan for joint administration of the railway 
 territories, preserving to her the sovereignty. Not so 
 
160 THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 the powers, who joined America in further opposition 
 to Russia; even Russia's ally, France, said she "could 
 not take a position inferior to that taken by the other 
 powers." All this worked in the interest of Japan 
 in more fully establishing "Article VI", and in forcing 
 Russia along the pathway of a joint understanding. 
 But Russia was still clear of entanglements, and free 
 to dispose of her railway if she desired. 
 
 Russia's hope, as nurtured by the Ministry of Fi- 
 nance, fixed itself upon America's financial activity in 
 China. While she was negotiating with Harriman, 
 China still clamored for her sovereignty in the railway 
 territories, and in the summer of 1909, for reasons 
 similar to those which were inspiring Russia, she put 
 forward proposals to herself buy Russia's railway. 
 This was the third neutralization scheme. America's 
 active policy underlaid all these movements. Though 
 penniless, China, on the strength of our activity and 
 support, felt herself rich enough to pay Japan and 
 Russia for their railways in Manchuria, however 
 excessive the price. 
 
 Fearing the effect of an actual awakening of America 
 to her vital foreign interests, Japan created a diversion. 
 Her need was to worry Russia a little more. She 
 brought forward the question of opening to naviga- 
 tion and trade, for all nations, the Amur and Sungari 
 rivers in Russian Manchuria, a treaty privilege hitherto 
 enjoyed by Russia alone. By treaty authority of the 
 rights of nations to equality, on July 1, 1909, China 
 declared the two rivers open. This gave Japan a share 
 of other of Russia's peculiar privileges. And as Japan 
 was the only power prepared to take advantage of 
 the opening of the Amur and Sungari, and her pressure 
 northward was already a burning question, she thus 
 
RUSSIA AND AMERICA 161 
 
 possessed something which it would be worth while 
 for Russia to get back. 
 
 Russia, perceiving Japan's fine Oriental hand in this, 
 and fearing the invasion of Japanese on her frontier, 
 refused to recognize the customs stations which China 
 promptly set up, and demanded that China declare 
 her attitude as to foreign craft applying for registra- 
 tion on these rivers, especially Japanese craft, in con- 
 travention of Russia's exclusive rights. 
 
 The drama of the "centuries", as it thus opened, 
 was moving rapidly. Japan was leaps ahead, with 
 America grasping at every question to mold it to the 
 Open Door doctrine, succeeding only in antagonizing 
 all the Manchurian allies through perpetually insisting 
 upon this doctrine and the integrity of China's sov- 
 ereignty and territory. Japan's dash began to take 
 the breath of informed Russians, and the Novoe Vremya 
 in St. Petersburg, Russia's semiofficial newspaper, 
 impressed by the magnificence with which we were 
 rising to the occasion, urged an understanding with us 
 respecting the integrity of China. In consideration 
 of Russian negotiations with Harriman and of all that 
 we were doing in China, St. Petersburg was willing to 
 forget its unsuccessful attempt to secure our consent 
 to a modification of the principles of the Open Door, 
 with special reference to Russian Manchuria. 
 
 It was a hint which we had no ears to hear and 
 could not understand. And, nothing resulting but 
 the deeper wading of Japan into Russia's preserves, 
 Russia's Ministry of Finance summarily concluded 
 its deliberations. And the result reached was a 
 definite neutralization proposal for the solution of the 
 whole Manchurian question for Russia, such as America 
 offered to the powers only some months later. Russia's 
 
162 THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 Manchurian question involving China's claim to ad- 
 ministration in the railway zone territories, as thus 
 determined, was explained by the Minister of Finance, 
 Kokovtseff, who said : 
 
 "If an insistence on our conditions [Russian sov- 
 ereignty in the railway territories] is impossible with- 
 out risking a war, and we are not prepared to support 
 our demands with arms, then the sole solution appears 
 to be the liquidation of our concession [Chinese Eastern 
 Railway] after the expiration of the term of our con- 
 tract and the completion of the Amur Railway. 
 
 "Under these circumstances, the most satisfactory 
 issue of the difficult relations between Russia and 
 China, would be the transfer of the administration of 
 the Chinese Eastern Railway to a special international 
 organization, each nation taking over a part of our 
 invested capital and a corresponding share of the guar- 
 anteed revenues. The date of liquidation must de- 
 pend upon the construction of the Amur Railway, as 
 otherwise, Primorskaya Province would be cut off 
 from Russia." 
 
 This was the fourth neutralizatiou scheme. 
 
 Russia had not, up to this time, allowed her Foreign 
 Office to interfere with the Ministry of Finance, which 
 had gone pretty far. The latter was making Russia's 
 last offering of her railway in Wall Street, where the 
 value of the proposed bargain, to us, was enhanced 
 by the success of the attack from the powers, led by 
 America, on Russia's right of administration in Man- 
 churia, a|, represented in "Article VI." 
 
 On Sept^mber,,!^, 1909, Harrimft!n*/lied,^ extinguishing 
 perhaps tne only opportunity in the, world for the 
 sale of the Russian railway, the possibility of which, 
 from the beginning, had depended solely upon the 
 
RUSSIA AND AMERICA 163 
 
 great ideas of Harriman. Defeated in this, and per- 
 haps disappointed from f aihng at a plan in which Japan 
 had successfully preceded her, Russia turned to the 
 task of establishing among the powers their acceptance 
 of "Article VI" as a fait accompli. The effort of 
 the Ministry of Finance was about over. Russia's 
 political problem with Japan was paramount. 
 
 Began, finally, the loss to us of Russia. On Octo- 
 ber 8, 1909, the Russian Foreign Office addressed to 
 the powers a communique containing the Russian- 
 Chinese "Interpretation" of May 10, 1909. It em- 
 phasized the apparent fact of China's accord with 
 Russia, seeming to make Russia China's deputy ad- 
 ministrator in the Russian railway territories in Man- 
 churia. Its intent was to quiet charges of Russian 
 violation of Chinese sovereignty. The Foreign OflBce 
 was alarmed at the complications, responsibility for 
 which was charged to the Ministry of Finance. 
 
 By this time, what Russia would do was a burning 
 question in Tokio. Japan, in her conciliation policy, 
 was promoting a propaganda on Russian-Japanese 
 community of interests in Manchuria and Mongolia, 
 and the necessity of standing together. Russia dis- 
 trusted Japan. Neither Japan nor Russia believed 
 there was not something concealed in America's 
 activities. Russia, already several times disappointed, 
 was wasting a good deal of effort in trying to find out 
 a secret that had no existence. Japan was equally 
 anxious and far more alarmed at the success and 
 boldness of America in setting up a physical base in 
 China from which properly to interfere in all Open 
 Door matters there. So long as this affected only 
 China proper, Japan did not exert herself. But now 
 she discovered that China had given to Americans 
 
164 THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 the concession for the railway traversing Manchuria 
 from end to end and cleaving both Japanese and 
 Russian spheres — the Kinchou-Aigun contract. 
 
 Came the loss to us of Japan. The latter approached 
 Russia with a proposal for a joint Russian-Japanese 
 protest which Russia equivocally assented to. Begin- 
 ning October 12, 1909, the two countries protested to 
 China, but independently and from different motives. 
 Russia protested because the new railway represented 
 the development of Manchuria by both Japan and 
 China, and the Japanese and Chinese advance feared 
 by Russians. She protested on account of the weak- 
 ness of her frontier. Japan protested, to support the 
 claim that the railway be made a part of her own rail- 
 way system, thus elaborating the basis of her position 
 in China. 
 
 Seeing that an understanding about Manchuria 
 could not be put off, and that she must decide what 
 she was going to do, Russia sent Kokovtseff to Man- 
 churia, where an arrangement was made to meet a 
 representative from Japan. Later, when Japan had 
 succeeded in forcing Russia into a joint policy which 
 defeated America's neutralization proposal, it was given 
 out in St. Petersburg that Russia, having learned of 
 the American proposal beforehand, sent Kokovtseff 
 to Manchuria to meet Prince Ito with the object of 
 arriving at an understanding between Japan and Russia 
 against the American proposal, should it be made. 
 But this was only for Japanese consumption, when 
 Russia no longer had any hopes of her own plans, and 
 realized she was being driven into the arms of Japan. 
 The representatives of the two powers appeared from 
 different motives, though by arrangement, on the 
 battleground in Manchuria. While Prince Ito, who 
 
RUSSIA AND AMERICA 165 
 
 had signed the Ito-Harriman agreement, and who was 
 the highest adviser of the Emperor of Japan, and 
 Japan's man of greatest poHtical stature, now went to 
 Manchuria, as we must beHeve upon the evidence that 
 lies without the Emperor's council in Tokio, in defense 
 against America's plans, Kokovtseff went to Manchuria 
 to take a final personal survey of the situation respect- 
 ing the possibility of neutralizing Russia's railway 
 there. He went with the promise given to Noetzlin, 
 of the International Wagons-Lits, that, on his return 
 he would recommend the sale of Russia's Manchurian 
 railway. Russia's first consideration was some solu- 
 tion of the Manchurian question so as to escape Japan. 
 
 The meeting at Harbin, October 26, 1909, was that 
 of two nations whom a combination of remarkable 
 circumstances, of which neither was wholly master, 
 but of which Russia knew Japan to be the "god in 
 the car", had thrown together. Russia had made 
 no overtures to Japan; she was at Japan's mercy. 
 The onlookers at Peking spoke of the coming liaison 
 as that of the lion and the lamb, and taunted Russia 
 with making her bed in the lion's maw. Russia to 
 the last cherished the unpromising plan of ridding 
 herself of the railway, so as to avoid entanglement. 
 
 The meeting in M. Kokovtseff's railway carriage 
 at Harbin, — in every case Japan went to Russia, 
 regardless of rank and precedence, — was entirely 
 formal. It was a preliminary meeting, brief, and the 
 Russians present felt a sense of relief when it ended, 
 and they realized that nothing had happened to com- 
 mit them. Nothing had happened to show that when 
 Prince Ito stepped from M. Kokovtseff's car his mind 
 had any cause to feel relief from the burden of his 
 thoughts as to what Russia yet might do toward dis- 
 
166 THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 posing of her railway. The possibihty of her surrender- 
 ing her claims to administrative sovereignty over her 
 railway territories, which was the principal basis of 
 Japan's continental policy since the war, remained an 
 unsolved menace to Japanese ambitions. 
 
 I regret the occasion of again referring to an incident 
 of uncommon sadness to all Americans, and one from 
 which I would have been glad to turn away, even 
 though it illuminates perhaps more powerfully than 
 could any illustration at command, the American 
 problem of Japan and the Pacific which my book 
 undertakes to disclose. Closely following Prince Ito 
 as he stepped from the car, in the position of the game 
 stalking the hunter, came M. Kokovtseff. Prince Ito 
 passed down the line of Russian railway guards on 
 parade, turned about, and started back, when a Korean 
 spectator in the crowd lifted a revolver, fired two shots 
 into his body, and emptied the remaining cartridges 
 of the weapon at the Prince's escort. A Russian 
 cinematograph operator stumbled over his apparatus 
 and fled. Prince Ito sank to the ground, was carried 
 into his railway carriage, and died in a few minutes. 
 
 When we look back upon the stirring days of the 
 Japanese Restoration, when Prince li was assassinated 
 for signing the American treaty, we think of them as 
 days that could never be repeated, compared with 
 which the present is a tame and dreary treadmill of 
 sordid and monotonous uneventfulness. Yet here 
 were events that could be measured only at the cost 
 of the life of one of the greatest world men of the last 
 forty years. The last political tragedy of the kind 
 in East Asia had been the murder of the Queen of 
 Korea by a Japanese. An attempt had been made 
 upon the life of the eminent Li Hung-chang, which 
 
RUSSIA AND AMERICA 167 
 
 had aroused the sympathy of the world, and more 
 recently the governor of a Chinese province had been 
 assassinated. But seldom have international affairs 
 in East Asia, ancient or modern, risen to the dramatic 
 and breathless tension that accompanied this tragic 
 meeting of the Russian Minister of Finance and the 
 great Japanese Elder Statesman and Prince, in Russian 
 Manchuria. From the seemingly inevitable under- 
 standing with Japan, which she feared, and had so 
 long successfully avoided, Russia was again shielded, 
 strangely enough by an assassin, and one totally igno- 
 rant of the facts above recited. 
 
 Russia promptly expressed sorrow that such a 
 calamity had occurred, and, as she said, on Russian 
 territory. At the sound appeared China. Like Ban- 
 quo's ghost, the specter of Chinese sovereignty for 
 a moment solemnly arose in the question as to whom 
 belonged the prisoner. China hesitated in awe, while 
 exultant at the assassination. Russia seized the 
 assassin, and Japan received, at this tragic altar and 
 bier of her first statesman and subject, what consola- 
 tion there might be of confirmation of Russian and 
 Japanese railway zone sovereignty, in receiving the 
 prisoner. China was ignored. She was the cat, look- 
 ing at kings. 
 
 Ito's thoughts and hopes respecting the mission 
 upon which his Emperor had sent him were buried 
 with him. He was heard to utter one word. When 
 told who had shot him, he said : "Fool." Kokovtseff 
 attended the body of the great Oriental to the limits 
 of Russian "territory" at Chiang-chun. Japan cast 
 flashing glances at America. While the feelings of 
 the Japanese people toward this country and Russia 
 warred with each other, Japan rested her case. 
 
168 THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 We might be considered indirectly responsible for 
 Ito's death. I do not know what the sentiments of 
 the Japanese people on the matter are. But the in- 
 formed official class and others cannot escape the 
 conclusion, holding the view, as they do, that the 
 influence and interference of America in East Asian 
 affairs are the foundation of Japan's difficulties with 
 China, and a great deal of her European difficulties 
 as well. At the same time there hangs over the mem- 
 ory of Prince Ito the cloud of apparent desertion of 
 his own political convictions and the principles for 
 which he stood with us in East Asia and the Pacific 
 to go over to the banner of Komura and the expan- 
 sionists. We cannot assume that Ito at Harbin re- 
 tained, even with reservations, his original approval 
 of the American plan as presented by Harriman, or 
 that he was prepared to make any concessions to 
 Kokovtseff. It was, however, within the bounds of 
 possibility that had Ito lived, the course of history, as 
 has been surmised, might have taken the turn which 
 Mr. Otto H. Kahn points out once hung on the fate 
 of the agreement made by Mr. Harriman. Ito was 
 acquainted with the essential facts. He may have 
 been prepared to compromise with Russia. Is it 
 possible that the anger of the Japanese Government 
 and the necessities of politics in East Asia have pre- 
 vented a declaration of her intentions on that occasion ? 
 In Ito's fate was not the chance to vindicate his posi- 
 tion. The last opportunity of his life to explain by 
 an act his attitude to Komura's ruthless plan of state, 
 and set himself right in American eyes, was snatched 
 from him by a vagabond, alien "fool." 
 
 It does not seem possible that Ito could have failed, 
 on this supreme occasion, to have affixed some terminal 
 
RUSSIA AND AMERICA 169 
 
 possibilities to Japanese ambitions under Komura's 
 leadership and plans. That fate was against him is 
 the circumstance to which is due America's situation 
 and problem in the Pacific to-day. Already intimi- 
 dated by Japan's successful diplomatic slugging, Russia 
 took fright at the murder of Prince Ito while under 
 Russian guard and protection, and immediately ordered 
 her Minister at Peking to formally deliver to China 
 the communique which, October 8, Russia had pre- 
 sented to the great powers. This order reached 
 Peking before Korostovetz, the Minister, who had 
 gone to. Harbin, returned. The action was that of 
 panic. The amazed Minister warned St. Petersburg 
 that China would not agree with the Russian view, 
 and that it would bring down upon them an appeal 
 by China to the powers against the communique. 
 And this actually followed. 
 
 It took some time to understand this great tragedy 
 of Prince Ito. Russia and Japan contemplated each 
 other, but in spite of their intimate struggles there 
 was nothing to show that they were in reality any 
 nearer in sympathy and understanding than before. 
 Russia was all but outrun. She had not realized any 
 feasible plan of arresting Japan's aggression, and there 
 was no promise of her realizing the neutralization of 
 her railway alone. 
 
 Utter mischief for China had been raised by Japan's 
 getting into Russia's preserves and dividing them, for 
 she had a power for making use of them greater than 
 all the rest of the world, including China. Russia 
 was still recoiling from the Japanese impact of 1904 
 and 1905. She was still beating a retreat. As a 
 temporary expedient, unable to resist Japan and the 
 powers, she had staked everything on "Article VI." 
 
170 THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 Only Japan openly supported her. Under pressure of 
 disapproval from the powers, focused by America's 
 policy, in desperation at her predicament, and just 
 before we came to her intended relief, Russia, through 
 the Ministry of Foreign Affairs at St. Petersburg, 
 said to Ambassador Rockhill, "America will drive 
 Russia into the arms of Japan if she persists in her 
 uncompromising attitude." As there was then no 
 compromise in the Open Door doctrine and the prin- 
 ciples of Chinese integrity and sovereignty, and as we 
 had never comprehended the consequences of the 
 case, this could not be helped. 
 
 The Russian-Manchurian convict bear was now har- 
 assed and driven. China was appealing for protection 
 of her sovereignty. The Open Door powers were 
 demanding their treaty rights. On December 16, 
 1909, recognizing these things, and the dangers due 
 to the advanced position into which Japan was moving, 
 and with a view to arresting these ever-increasing 
 complications, after the individual plans of Japan, 
 Russia, China, and the powers had failed, the Ameri- 
 can Government itself proposed to Russia, Japan, and 
 the powers, as I have shown, the neutralization of all 
 the Manchurian railways, including its own proposed 
 Kinchou-Aigun line, by purchase and restoration to 
 China, as the others, in part, and especially the Russian 
 Ministry of Finance, had devised. This was the fifth 
 neutralization project. 
 
 Kokovtseff's purpose never wavered. Even after 
 Ito's death he recommended sale of Russia's railway 
 to an international syndicate. But Russia rejected 
 the proposal, and was received into the arms of Japan. 
 Her action, to the American Government, and to 
 others acquainted with the above facts, was the wonder 
 
RUSSIA AND AMERICA 171 
 
 of the hour. It was explained by outsiders as due to 
 distrust of America's motives caused by bunghng 
 diplomacy in presenting the proposal in St. Petersburg, 
 and by Russians as due to the grandiose nature of the 
 plan. But why did she reject it ? 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 Political Secrets 
 
 It were wiser in us, in view of coming conflicts, to 
 have looked into their shadows and worked out this 
 history and its message long ago. 
 
 The situation after our efforts was this : An up- 
 heaval had occurred in China, especially in Manchuria, 
 and Japan had completely developed the basis of her 
 plan of empire. This had been done in the presence 
 of most of the statesmen, diplomats, and administra- 
 tors of the world, especially those foremost in the gov- 
 ernments of China, Russia, Japan, and America. 
 Many of them visited Manchuria in quest of the polit- 
 ical equilibrium of East Asia. In China was Yuan 
 Shih-k'ai, and the great Chinese counselors, Chang 
 Chih-tung, Hsu Shih-chang, Na Tung, Hsi Liang, and 
 others; Tong Shao-yi and Liang Tun-yen were in- 
 volved, with the representatives of other nations. 
 China, in pursuit of her sovereign rights, sent her Man- 
 churian governors to Russian Manchuria to investi- 
 gate everything. She appointed special commissioners 
 to negotiate with Russia at Harbin. She twice super- 
 seded her ablest viceroys at Mukden, each being en- 
 joined to execute successful measures counter to 
 Japanese and Russian designs. 
 
 Russia dispatched special commissioners from St. 
 
 172 
 
POLITICAL SECRETS 173 
 
 Petersburg, one Minister and one ex-Minister of Fi- 
 nance, and one of them, with General Horvat, Ad- 
 ministrator of the Russian Railway, visited Peking. 
 The other was met in Manchuria by the Russian Minis- 
 ter at Peking. Russia sent numerous diplomatic and 
 military agents to North China and her Pri-amur 
 Province in connection with the attempt to solve what 
 was the greatest political question in the world. Gen- 
 eral Gerngros, who had fought against the Japanese 
 in Manchuria, came from the Czar, with a military 
 staff from St. Petersburg, and the Archimandrite 
 Mission from Peking, to observe the dedication of the 
 Japanese monument to the Russian defenders of Port 
 Arthur, a work whose execution was one of Japan's 
 graceful acts in her policy of conciliation of and afl&lia- 
 tion with Russia. 
 
 Japan's leading men had many of them visited Man- 
 churia in connection with building the basis of Japan's 
 continental empire. They included General Terauchi, 
 Minister of War, and Prince Ito, who came twice. 
 Gonsuke Hayashi, Minister at Peking, visited Japanese 
 Manchuria when Japan's interests there were an 
 enigma, and the questions with China appeared un- 
 solvable. General Oshima, Governor of Kuangtung 
 (Port Arthur and surroundings), remained in charge of 
 Japan's interests, a foreign representative equal in 
 rank with China's Viceroy at Mukden. Prince Fushimi 
 came; and the missions of imperial, diplomatic, and 
 military agents were unending. It was the fashion 
 among Japanese of all grades to make Manchuria a 
 way-station in all their travels. 
 
 France was inconspicuous in this drama, but her 
 participation as an ally of Russia was perfectly real. 
 Germany for a time took no active part. Doctor 
 
174 THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 Dernburg, her Colonial Minister, afterward notorious 
 as Germany's war agent in the United States, visited 
 North China and Siberia. But Germany, while in- 
 terested, sub rosa, stood in the background. Of all 
 the Manehurian allies, Great Britain, on account of 
 her scrupulous interpretation of her obligations under 
 her alliance, and the opposition it created among the 
 British people, distinguished herself, as I will show. 
 The lament of Sir Edward Grey, Secretary of Foreign 
 Affairs, and one of the World War statesmen, to the 
 effect that with respect to Manchuria he could do 
 nothing, will make him remembered least enviably by 
 China. In this affair no other British official was so 
 unlucky, and no foreign statesman deserved more 
 ingratitude from China unless it was Iswolsky, then 
 Russia's Minister of Foreign Affairs, who, to his critics, 
 appeared incapable of rising to an idea so happy and 
 so splendid as that of the neutralization proposal of 
 America. 
 
 At least for several years, America took a place in 
 the drama but little less important than Japan's. 
 Heralding the gathering of the chieftains alluded to, 
 came President Roosevelt (1903), declaring the "Pacific 
 Era", later restricting his efforts in the affairs of East 
 Asia to the Japanese question, and although striking 
 spectacular and great blows, driving at the nailhead 
 straight in the direction of war as it has been promised 
 to us in the Pacific. The burly American wielded the 
 tomahawk over Ambassador Aoki, bringing about his 
 recall and the practical exclusion of the Japanese from 
 the United States, while with his common stick he 
 sent the Battleship Fleet maneuvering in the Pacific, 
 successfully creating an anti-Oriental bond in the 
 Pacific area. 
 
POLITICAL SECRETS 175 
 
 Our problem in China, left to Secretary Root, was 
 fought along negligently after this. It then encountered 
 the determination of President Taft and Secretary 
 Knox. At Peking, Minister Rockhill nursed our prob- 
 lem along in its early stages, followed by Mr. Fletcher, 
 his First Secretary. It was the fashion for ministers 
 of state, colonial secretaries, and administrators to 
 visit China, and so came Secretary of War Taft, visit- 
 ing all East Asia, Siberia, and Russia. Thereafter, as 
 President, promoting the doctrines of Hay and McKin- 
 ley, he imitated in China the boldness of Roosevelt at 
 home, displacing the indifference of Root by the activity 
 of Knox, later sending his own Secretary of War, 
 Dickinson, in his footsteps to East Asia, and contend- 
 ing with all the powers at once. 
 
 This galaxy of international political stars and star 
 dust supplied the setting due Japan, as "the god in 
 the car" of the Manchurian question, and to show 
 that the answer to the question of Russia's refusal of 
 our neutralization proposal was due to Japan's new 
 plan of empire. As it appears to one who has watched 
 it from the outside, and what is deducible from 
 some knowledge from the inside of the Japanese 
 Foreign Office, this plan, briefly, is comprehended 
 as follows : 
 
 On September 5, 1905, Japan and Russia signed 
 under American auspices "the Portsmouth Treaty", 
 binding them to the principle of the integrity of China, 
 the restoration of Manchuria to China, and the preser- 
 vation of China's sovereignty there. 
 
 Russia was willing to give up her footing in Man- 
 churia. 
 
 Japan was willing to give up her footing in Man- 
 churia. 
 
176 THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 The Treaty contained other things in its secret 
 minutes, notably the obHgation of Russia to give 
 Japan texts of her written agreements with China, 
 some of which gave the secret basis of Russia's pohtical 
 footing in Manchuria. Some of Japan's war gains 
 were specified in the Treaty, such as : half of the 
 Island of Saghalin, payment for the care in Japan of 
 Russian prisoners, the Russian Railway south of 
 Chiang-chun, etc. But there was one unspecified 
 asset of war of which no one knew at the time, except 
 Russia, who did not seem to realize what would be its 
 value to Japan. This asset was "Article VI." Shared 
 with Japan, provisions in "Article VI" gave a success- 
 ful rival special rights and privileges with which that 
 rival could undermine Russia and conquer China. 
 Japan reconsidered before giving up her footing in " 
 Manchuria, as she might have done by the policy con- 
 templated in the Ito-Harriman agreement, and awaited 
 receipt of a full knowledge of the possibilities of Russia's 
 secret basis by which she had dominated Manchuria. 
 
 It was some time before these two Japans were 
 recognized by the world. But as things go, it took but 
 a brief diplomacy to materialize them. Summed up 
 from what is left over from the story of Russia's keen, 
 eventful race for the political open, and her swift finish 
 in the "arms of Japan", it is this : On abandoning the 
 Ito-Harriman agreement, Japan reversed her continental 
 policy two months later at Peking, by the Ching- 
 Komura convention, establishing herself in Northern 
 China as a legatee of Russia. Immediately inaugurat- 
 ing her plan of expansion in North China on the basis 
 of "Article VI", she closely invested Russia diplo- 
 matically, in Russian parlance, dogging her footsteps. 
 She subverted Korea's government and king, changed 
 
POLITICAL SECRETS 177 
 
 her policy toward the powers, from the basis of the 
 Portsmouth Treaty and other treaties, to that of ac- 
 quired interests and potential advantages in China, 
 arranged loans for industrial development in Man- 
 churia, and created by imperial ordinance "The South 
 Manchurian Railway Company " — a Japanese govern- 
 ment corporation, to exercise for Japan, and in viola- 
 tion of the sovereignty of China, the same sovereign 
 functions which the Chinese Eastern Railway Com- 
 pany (and the Russo-Chinese Bank) exercised, in vio- 
 lation of the sovereignty of China, for Russia, and to 
 execute "Article VI." 
 
 Captain Brinkley, the official apologist for Japan, 
 tried to explain this. In his words, when Japan thus 
 took, in Manchuria, at the end of the war, that which, 
 in making war, she had denied Russia: "It was 
 scarcely to be expected that Japan alone should make 
 a large sacrifice on the altar of a theory [the Open Door 
 and integrity of territory and sovereignty of China 
 within her borders] to which no other State thought of 
 yielding any retrospective obedience whatever." 
 
 Japan's "retrospective" pledges ended. No other 
 State had anything in China relatively worth retro- 
 ceding, except Russia, perhaps, and had Japan set the 
 fashion as she evidently intended and declared she was 
 doing in the beginning, she would have deprived herself 
 of a continental empire, to be paid for by China. She 
 would have given up Manchuria, "the base for the con- 
 quest of the whole of East Asia !" 
 
 See what she did to avoid this. She secured a 
 nominal pledge from Russia supporting her own right 
 of administration through the railway in South Man- 
 churia, thus setting up the principle of the division of 
 sovereignty in Manchuria. She then took advantage 
 
178 THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 of Russia's conflict with the treaty powers in China to 
 increase the division in Russian poHcy, whetting Russia's 
 ministries of Finance and Foreign Affairs against each 
 other, and through her ambassador and special envoys 
 promoting a Russian-Japanese pohcy and propaganda. 
 She brought pressure upon Russia by immigration 
 enterprises on the latter's frontiers, forcing open the 
 Amur and Sungari rivers to trade ; asserted equal foot- 
 ing with Russia in Russia's special Manchurian and 
 Mongolian frontier trade rights ; opposed with Russia 
 the China-American Railway in Manchuria ; arraigned 
 Great Britain against it, and enlisted her active opposi- 
 tion to prevent its ratification by the Chinese Throne 
 (Russia and France following) ; and made every effort 
 to arrest Russia's plans for the introduction of neutral 
 powers into Manchuria. 
 
 Japan, as the climax of this drama approached, had 
 extended her communications and her activities from 
 the dividing line of Russian and Japanese Manchuria 
 to the Siberian border, and was about to spread herself 
 over the water system of Russian Manchuria. The 
 loss of Ito, for which Russia felt herself blamed, and 
 the tremendous force of Japan's diplomatic success, 
 appeared to completely conquer Russia. It was easy 
 for the four Manchurian allies practically to consoli- 
 date, leaving America the only power at China's side. 
 Japan found an understanding with Russia regarding 
 the permanency of "Article VI", and of the future of 
 their mutual interests, appreciably near. She saw that 
 the idea of the practical difficulties in the way of the 
 Open Door principle, in view of her opposition to it, 
 had taken hold of Great Britain, not to say France, so 
 that she had little to fear, from her standpoint, from 
 the militant Open Door diplomacy of America. In 
 
POLITICAL SECRETS 179 
 
 the neutralization proposal, Russia capitulated a second 
 time to Japan, but through fear. 
 
 To make clear America's subsequent situation in the 
 Pacific, America's diplomacy may be expressed with 
 the same brevity. When Japan decided to act upon 
 a new plan of empire on the continent, she left to future 
 events the revelation of her purposes. It was impos- 
 sible to believe in the beginning, but in the course of 
 two or three years we could finally clearly perceive 
 that Japan's claims of special rights could not be 
 made to agree with her pledges, with Ito's view of 
 Manchuria upon which the peace was made, and with 
 similar pledges of the great powers. 
 
 When we began to take action in China in the in- 
 terests of the Open Door, we were drawn into it in the 
 belief that things were drifting — not that Japan was 
 the deus ex machina of them. What America knew 
 now was that during four years preceding her neutrali- 
 zation proposal, Russia made every effort to dispose 
 of her railway, cautiously at first, and unknown to 
 Japan, so as to place a neutral power or combination of 
 powers between herself and Japan; that these two 
 nations kept up a suspicious, apprehensive surveillance 
 of each other respecting these plans, without a break, 
 until our proposal came. 
 
 Then, when Japan had stalked Russia into a polit- 
 ical cul de sac, from which, in her stampeded condition, 
 she could not escape unaided, America merely put 
 together the unsatisfied aspirations and desires of 
 Russia, and the past pledges and present Open Door 
 professions of Japan, and with careful consideration of 
 the interests of all concerned, drew up, in the fulness 
 of time, what had been premature in the Harriman 
 plan. The famous neutralization proposal offered 
 
180 THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 Russia her desired opportunity of escape from Japan, 
 and it gave Japan a final opportunity to justify her 
 many pledges, to realize the restrictions of European 
 aggression in China, and promote the unrivaled oppor- 
 tunities for commercial and industrial expansion on the 
 continent, which our general aid would give. It was 
 the next logical step, both in America's Hay policy and 
 in the interests of the rights of the powers, for the 
 preservation of the Open Door and the integrity and 
 sovereignty of China. 
 
 Political secrets from behind the scenes in Japan, 
 Russia, and England tell the story from this point. 
 In her solitary fight for the Open Door and the preser- 
 vation of China, the most important consideration for 
 America appeared to be the attitude of Europe, 
 especially of Japan's ally. Great Britain. To her, as 
 a great world power and Japan's ally, America first 
 turned in her disinterested eiBFort to solve the Man- 
 ehurian question. On November 6, 1909, the neu- 
 tralization proposal was submitted to her, with the 
 implied understanding that it would elicit from Great 
 Britain an indication of the probable attitude of Japan, 
 between whom and herself complete confidence and 
 interchange of information and oflficial views on all 
 things vitally affecting their mutual interests in Asia 
 were provided by covenant. 
 
 After consideration, Britain returned a favorable 
 reply, adhering in principle to the proposal, and by 
 her correspondence conveying the decided impression 
 in Washington that the proposal would be considered 
 regular if America desired to go further. 
 
 Therefore, our Government assumed that Japan 
 was acquainted with its intentions, and considered 
 that she had not only not offered any legal objection. 
 
POLITICAL SECRETS 181 
 
 but had not urged physical obstacles or given any dis- 
 couragements. But in order to satisfy any doubts in 
 the matter, by giving time for possible opposition to 
 develop at Tokio, St. Petersburg, at Paris, or even in 
 London, Secretary Knox waited more than one month 
 before proceeding with the identical proposal to the 
 powers. 
 
 On December 16, 1909, after forty days, America 
 submitted the proposal in Tokio, about the same time 
 (allowing for official convenience) in St. Petersburg, 
 and in Paris, London, and Berlin. It then developed 
 that far from being accepted as a regular diplomatic 
 proceeding, it was regarded officially by the Man- 
 churian allies as unusual and irregular. 
 
 Something had happened. Ere Christmas arrived, 
 a complete plan was formulated between St. Peters- 
 burg and Tokio. The exchange of correspondence 
 extended to London and Paris, and even to Berlin, 
 where Germany, from the cue it had taken from these 
 activities of the Manchurian allies, was able to frame 
 its reply to America with reference to the fate held in 
 store for the proposal by the allies. America had not 
 gone against Japan alone ; she had gone against four 
 powers. 
 
 The delicate balance of the world's affairs at that 
 time, as centered in Manchuria and East Asia, is 
 shown by what happened. A fixed program to extin- 
 guish the proposal was agreed to in St. Petersburg 
 (Japan still went to Russia) , embracing three provisions : 
 first, the proposal to be rejected on a date to be deter- 
 mined after its exposure in the press, and after inform- 
 ing China of its defeat, in identical notes, by Russia 
 and Japan to the American Government; second, 
 Japan (as the paramount power in Asia) to inform 
 
182 THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 China of America's defeat in her plan, and to deal with 
 China for her complicity in it; third, Russia to com- 
 municate the proposal to the press, either at St. Peters- 
 burg or Peking. 
 
 By this arrangement, Japan allowed Russia tech- 
 nically to exonerate herself from the imputation of 
 having previously entertained the idea of any such 
 project; it exacted from Russia first recognition of 
 Japan in the latter's new policy of empire, as the para- 
 mount nation in East Asia; and closed Russia's 
 mouth against complaining of Japan's openly bullying 
 her and dominating the Manchurian allies. It gave 
 to their action the appearance of united policy. 
 
 Britain and France, the corresponding allies, were 
 to hold aloof. No recognized communications were 
 to be sent to Peking, except by Russia and Japan to 
 their ministers, and these ministers were not to discuss 
 matters with each other. At Christmas, they received 
 instructions to this effect, and also that they were not to 
 discuss matters with the French and British ministers. 
 
 On January 5, 1910, Russia let loose the proposal 
 to the press at St. Petersburg. A fortnight was allowed 
 for press discussion, to air the matter. A newspaper 
 ebullition followed, as I have shown, especially in 
 Japan. Obstacles to the proposal, particularly the 
 sensibilities of the two powers, Russia and Japan, were 
 exaggerated, and especially in Japan was feeling aroused 
 — the main object of publicity on Japan's part, where 
 every public man of importance expressed opposition 
 to the proposal. America was held up to ridicule, and 
 a date was selected by Japan and Russia for formal 
 rejection of the proposal. 
 
 On January 20, 1910, Japan performed her self-ap- 
 pointed task of dealing with China in the matter. 
 
POLITICAL SECRETS 18S 
 
 as I have shown, and then it appeared that the twenty- 
 second of January was the date set for deehning. The 
 prearranged notes of rejection were that day handed 
 to America at Washington. 
 
 Britain, on the face of things, had taken one of two 
 courses. She had either shunned Japan in the matter, 
 through timidity, contrary to America's anticipations 
 and permitted by the terms of the Anglo-Japanese 
 aUiance, and as America beHeved she had done, or she 
 deferred to Japan's wish for the defeat of the proposal 
 so as to discourage American activities with reference 
 to the Open Door, to the maintenance of which she 
 was pledged. The charitable view taken in Washing- 
 ton was that Britain used her technical position to avoid 
 her responsibility in the matter of the Open Door. 
 She accepted an opportunity for abating the active 
 principle of the Open Door, — which, interpreted with 
 reference to China's rights, was irksome to herself, as 
 an ally of Japan, and to the three other allies, — and 
 for widening the existing breach between Japan and 
 America. As may be seen, this would work to her 
 advantage as well as our own should the interests of 
 the two countries come to a final arbitrament in the 
 Pacific. But the fact is that Great Britain was not 
 prepared to oppose Japan. She was in hardly a better 
 position on the south than Russia was on the north. 
 And we were learning that the relations, even of allies, 
 in the world politics of Manchuria, were anything but 
 easy. 
 
 The public, as represented by the press generally 
 throughout the world, showed lack of knowledge of 
 these affairs. Perhaps the most important thing of 
 all, in connection with the future, was overlooked en- 
 tirely. Russia's anxiety was to know how far our 
 
184 THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 policy would be supported in whatever it might lead 
 us into. The neutralization proposal had weaknesses 
 I have not mentioned. The opportunity which it gave 
 to Japan to make good her pledges embarrassed and 
 angered Japan. And, since her contrary policy had 
 been determined upon, she had lost Ito in Manchuria, 
 an episode not calculated to modify her exasperation 
 at us. It was bungled in London : it was not reason- 
 able, in view of her weak and equivocal position in 
 China, and the world tension over these affairs, to 
 depend upon Great Britain's soimding Japan. It was 
 not reasonable to take Russia's approval for granted. 
 We should have taken nothing for granted. Under 
 Secretary Root, America had neglected China, es- 
 pecially Russian Manchuria, and Russia, beset by 
 Japan, felt that to accept our proposal would be to 
 lean on a broken reed. Nevertheless, up to the very 
 eve of January 5, 1910, when she made public the con- 
 tents of our proposal, Russia asked for assurances that 
 the United States would take whatever measures were 
 necessary to carry out the principles involved in the 
 proposal, if it were accepted. She was favorable to it, 
 she was opposed to closer relations with Japan, and 
 rather than that looked to an alliance through China 
 and the Open Door powers. Had she received a meas- 
 ure of material support, she would have joined us, and 
 the story of East Asia would again have been rewritten. 
 But by this time Japan's Ambassador, Motono, had 
 won over Iswolsky, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, 
 and, the party of Kokovtseff being discredited by the 
 tension injected into the situation by our Harbin policy, 
 Ito's death, our bungling diplomacy, and other con- 
 siderations, on July 4, 1910, after four years of unavail- 
 ing denial of Japan, Russia signed with her an agree- 
 
POLITICAL SECRETS 185 
 
 ment by which she surrendered her voluntary right to 
 dispose of her railway, and covenanted to preserve the 
 status quo. The paramount need of a separation of 
 Russia and Japan was defeated in a "predatory pact", 
 based on "Article VI", and all other claims to special 
 rights of Russia and Japan in China, and looking to the 
 immediate partition of territories in Northern China. 
 In this pact were united all the frontier powers of 
 China, known as the Manchurian allies. It showed 
 the conquest of the European diplomatic powers by 
 Japan, and the cementing of their joint poKcy in 
 opposition to the principles of the Open Door. And 
 Japan paid her respects to us badly by the selection 
 of the day on which the agreement was signed. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 Japan's First Victory 
 
 This was Japan's first victory. The life of the 
 Open Door and of John Hay's work was at its lowest 
 ebb. 
 
 The apparent importance of Japan's diplomatic vic- 
 tory over America in the foremost political doctrine in 
 world affairs, especially when viewed with reference to 
 the humble position Japan had among ^the powers 
 before the war, when Russia, France, and Germany 
 had bulldozed her out of lower Manchuria, was colossal. 
 Events have shown that by this Japan had us virtually 
 eliminated from China for years. In five years she 
 had rendered Hay's policy nearly obsolete. America, 
 as a political influence in Asia, was hors de combat. 
 
 The most delicate subject in America's foreign rela- 
 tions since 1909 has been the neutralization proposal. 
 How to restore confidence with Russia and Japan was 
 a question with which President Taft and Secretary 
 Knox wrestled for more than a year. And their suc- 
 cessors tackled it. Lack of confidence borders danger- 
 ously on hostility and war. No admitted explanation 
 of Britain's part in that diplomatic incident, so far as 
 can be found out, has ever been made to Japan, to 
 Russia, or to France, They were carrying all they 
 could bear in their own troubles, and still are. No 
 
 186 
 
JAPAN'S FIRST VICTORY 187 
 
 challenge could provoke the Taft Government to ex- 
 plain its diplomacy with respect to that measure, 
 which, if done, might have been misunderstood by all 
 our political opponents. In view of Britain's ap- 
 parently helpless infidelity to her Open Door pledges 
 to us, as against her fidelity to Japan, she was not 
 likely to go out of her way to set Japan, Russia, and 
 France right in the matter of America's position and 
 efforts. We had to shoulder the wages of our own sin 
 of bad management. In 1910, the Government at 
 Washington was still hoping that an opportunity would 
 present itself to allow an explanation to be made. 
 
 But the breaking down of our position during several 
 years could not be remedied now. There were insidious 
 leaks left uncovered in the past that could not be so 
 unceremoniously stopped. And in this low ebb of the 
 Open Door came revolution to give it perhaps its final 
 blow, by upsetting the currency loan. The action of 
 the special finance commissioner, Sheng Hsuan-huai, 
 who was one of China's earliest advocates of a currency 
 system, sound money, and of modern finance for China, 
 in pressing the loan policy in the face of such misguided 
 revolutionary opposition, as he encountered, showed 
 how urgent China's ablest and best informed officials 
 regarded the questions of reform, and of strengthening 
 the central government by increasing its powers and 
 revenues. On the other hand, the action of Na Tung 
 in opposing the signing of both of the loans, due to the 
 representations of Japan regarding the danger of a 
 further extension of Western influence in East Asia, 
 made especially to him, indicated an apprehension on 
 the part of one of the highest Manchu officials of the 
 political dangers of the Government's loan policy. 
 Japan was armed cap-a-pie for the loan contest. 
 
188 THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 As the process of revolution continually going on in 
 East Asia is the result of Western contact, and of West- 
 ern influences largely traceable to America, as pointed 
 out by eminent Japanese, it is natural that upheavals 
 dangerous to the plans of Japan for dominating East 
 Asia should be charged by her against us. Consider- 
 ing the extensive activities and interests of Japan in 
 China, it is also natural that Japan should consider 
 our two countries as the principal figures in China's 
 modern revolutionary rebellions. 
 
 In October, 1910, the revolution broke. It was a 
 grave situation for Japan's plan of empire, but she 
 entered this crisis with greater prestige than she had 
 ever before exercised. Her diplomatic stride after 
 eight years was apparently still lengthening. She 
 found not only her European allies, but the American 
 Government, agreed as to the advisability of the con- 
 tinuance of the monarchical system in China. But the 
 revolutionary movement was moving in the direction 
 of a republic, as exemplified in the American system. 
 This was the result of the movement which Japan had 
 abetted through Na Tung and the revolutionary ele- 
 ment, in directly opposing the currency loan and the 
 Western influences which would be introduced into 
 China through them. 
 
 In April-May, 1911, the Japanese press attacked 
 the loan. The Hochi called it "a plotting loan" and 
 said: "We fail to see how America can rid herself of 
 the charge that she has been guilty of tricky diplo- 
 macy, which can but induce us to expand our navy. 
 If we do this, America will be in no position to protest, 
 because if we cannot become a continental power we 
 must become a maritime one." The Yomiuri char- 
 acterized the consummation of the loan by the four 
 
JAPAN'S FIRST VICTORY 189 
 
 powers a failure of Japanese diplomacy and a blunder 
 which would call for "concerted action on the part of 
 Japan and Russia to rectify." An interview attributed 
 to a Japanese diplomat described the loan as "the inso- 
 lent action taken by China and the four powers against 
 Japan in Manchuria." The Mainichi, by calling it the 
 "irretrievable blunders of our Foreign Office authori- 
 ties", focused Japanese opinion that American diplo- 
 macy had defeated Japanese. 
 
 On May 29, Japan and Russia asked to be taken 
 into the loan, and it did not come up again until the 
 revolutionary rebellion in China was reaching its con- 
 clusion. And Japan was ready for it, as she had 
 always been : Japanese diplomacy was by no means 
 the delinquent the savage public in Japan made it out 
 to be. After "taking stock", Japan, in February, 
 1912, made overtures to the Republican Government 
 established on the Yangtse River. Seeing the immi- 
 nent possibility of a republic in China, she proposed 
 indirectly to the Republican Government at Nanking to 
 supply it with arms and munitions, and to build up its 
 army and navy and provide it with funds, on the 
 security of the minerals and steel works adjacent to 
 Hankow. She had taken a leaf from America's book 
 of loan enterprise in China. 
 
 As the republic was verging on bankruptcy, and 
 might be forced to capitulate to Japanese overtures, 
 the circumstances were communicated to Washington, 
 and through the good offices of the United States and 
 Great Britain, a compromise between the North and 
 the South was arranged in China, and Japan's scheme 
 for profiting by the revolution failed. 
 
 Knox entered upon a final great effort. In 1912, 
 the Anglo-Japanese and Franco-Russian allies, having 
 
190 THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 now become the four Manchurian allies associated for 
 the remaking of international relations in East Asia, 
 Central Asia, and Europe, we saw that the mutual 
 interests of the powers in East Asia, and the preserva- 
 tion of China, must be based upon rearrangement and 
 readjustment, to the interests of the Manchurian allies, 
 of the Open Door principles. 
 
 In August, Japan and Russia were admitted to the 
 currency loan which now became a currency, adminis- 
 tration, and industry loan, for reform in these three 
 directions and involved not less than three hundred 
 million dollars. Six powers thus united in a revision 
 of the principles of the Open Door presented by us and 
 devised on the immemorial principles of our intercourse 
 with all powers in China, both those of the Open Door 
 and of special interests. 
 
 The coalition of the six powers was based on the 
 principle that the prosperity and development of China 
 were the source of their best interests there, and it 
 provided loans to China for developing her resources 
 and making competent her administration. It in- 
 volved associate supervision in cooperation with China 
 of the work of development and administration. It 
 had the great advantage over the menacing wild-cat 
 system of the past known as the "gun-boat poHcy", 
 and that which had lately grown up, known as "special 
 rights", in that it provided legality and control in the 
 interference in China's internal affairs, while the worst 
 that justly could be said against it was that it promised 
 to China such benefits as the administration under 
 Lord Cromer had conferred upon Egypt in the financial 
 and industrial direction of that country, or the rehabili- 
 tation of Turkey by the commission method. 
 
 But we had come upon a new era. The revolution 
 
JAPAN'S FIRST VICTORY 191 
 
 which descended upon China, sweeping away the 
 Manchu monarchy and replacing it with a repubKc, 
 had saved Japan's plan of empire from the Six-Power 
 Loan. It had given time for an expression of resent- 
 ment against finance and capital and the so-called 
 "money power" in the United States, and the election 
 of a new government to repudiate the means secured 
 by the happy coalition of the six powers for upholding 
 the Open Door policy and saving China. 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 America's Retreat 
 
 The predatory powers of Europe and Asia were now 
 "traveling in packs" on the Pacific. The "predatory 
 pact", signed at Japan's instance on our national birth- 
 day, augured ill for American equal rights of commerce 
 and trade, as had the revolution. We were already 
 slipping rapidly backwards when the newly elected 
 President in Washington gave to our Open Door efforts 
 the last kick. Without questioning the motives and 
 good faith of any one concerned, it can be said that 
 on March 18, 1913, President Wilson gave the death 
 blow to the defense and salvation of the principles of 
 the Open Door doctrine, and to our financial and indus- 
 trial enterprises for the protection of our commerce in 
 China, by withdrawing support of the international 
 loan and repudiating our own Government's position. 
 The President's words were : 
 
 "The conditions of the loan seem to us to touch very 
 nearly the administrative independence of China itself ; 
 and the Administration does not feel that it ought, 
 even by implication, to be party to those conditions. 
 The responsibility on its part which would be implied 
 in requesting the bankers to undertake the loan might 
 conceivably go the length in some unhappy contin- 
 gency of forcible interference in the financial and even 
 
 192 
 
AMERICA'S RETREAT 193 
 
 the political affairs of that great Oriental State, just 
 now awakening to a consciousness of its power and of 
 its obligations to its people. The conditions include 
 not only the pledging of particular taxes, some of them 
 antiquated and burdensome, to secure the loan, but 
 also the administration of those taxes by foreign agents. 
 
 "The responsibility on the part of our Government 
 implied in the encouragement of a loan thus secured 
 and administered is plain enough, and is obnoxious to 
 the principles upon which the Government of our 
 people rests. 
 
 "The Government of the United States is not only 
 willing but earnestly desirous of aiding the great 
 Chinese people in every way that is consistent with 
 their untrammeled development and its own immemorial 
 principles. The awakening of the people of China to a 
 consciousness of their possibilities under free govern- 
 ment is the most significant, if not the most momen- 
 tous, event of our generation." 
 
 President Wilson's declaration was the most im- 
 portant policy advanced by our Government since the 
 declarations of 1900 secured by it from the powers, 
 again setting up the Open Door doctrine. It traversed 
 at least the practice respecting East Asia of every 
 other President since Polk. Yet he did not hesitate. 
 In rights and advantages secured, that constituted a 
 great asset to the nation, he took no account of the 
 Government, of Congress. He assumed that what 
 had accrued by the acts of the President and Cabinet 
 could be flung away by it. He answered for every- 
 body. 
 
 On January 26, 1914, in New York, Secretary Bryan 
 made an authorized official explanation of President 
 Wilson's reversal of the Government's policy respect- 
 
194 THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 ing the loan and the means taken for defending the 
 principles of the Open Door through industrial develop- 
 ment and control of the physical forces that were direct- 
 ing China's fate. Said he : 
 
 "The President's policy contemplates the formation 
 of an environment which will encourage the growth of 
 all that is good . . . the Government, while it cannot 
 create trade, can give to trade an environment in 
 which it can develop. ... If by a cultivation of 
 higher standards of morals we can assist any people 
 anywhere to improve their moral standards, we shall 
 not be without our reward. 
 
 "Whether we view the world, therefore, from a purely 
 material standpoint or from the standpoint of religion, 
 we must, if our force of reason is intelligent, reach the 
 same conclusions, viz., that we only build enduringly 
 when we endeavor to raise the level upon which we all 
 stand." 
 
 An honest and able effort was made by the hearers 
 of these words to know and realize what they meant, 
 and concurrence of the best opinion resulted in the 
 conviction that the Secretary, and before him the 
 President, meant that promotion of the material 
 interests of our country represented by trade with, and 
 industrial development in, China had its basis in the 
 securing first of the moral welfare of the Chinese people. 
 In this Secretary Bryan traversed the principles upon 
 which had acted our Secretaries of State who preceded 
 him back to John C. Calhoun, notably William H. 
 Seward, who forty-four years before, at Hongkong, on 
 the scene of the first cooperation of missionary, moral, 
 and religious and commercial enterprise for the pro- 
 motion of commerce and the welfare of the Chinese 
 people said : 
 
AMERICA'S RETREAT 195 
 
 "The Christian rehgion, for its acceptance, involves 
 some intellectual and social advancement, which can 
 only be effected through international commerce. I 
 look therefore chiefly to commerce for the regeneration 
 of China — that commerce to come across the Ameri- 
 can Continent and the Pacific Ocean." 
 
 In referring to the forces which guaranteed the con- 
 tinuance and increase of that commerce, Seward named 
 the material necessities first, and said there was "no 
 assignable measure to the future expansions of the 
 intercontinental regenerating commerce." Through 
 commerce, Seward saw China's salvation. Wilson 
 had got back to Root's course of drifting, respecting 
 the Pacific. 
 
 The defects of President Wilson's statement as show- 
 ing our relations with China and the powers, China's 
 position then, and her abject condition as the largest 
 nation in a now thoroughly sad world, were only too 
 evident. The course of action ever had led to con- 
 flict and "forcible interference." Taxes ever have 
 been "antiquated and burdensome." All taxes on 
 foreign commerce, part on native commerce, and all 
 postal revenues in China were administered by foreign 
 agents. The practical conditions of China's problems 
 might be obnoxious, but they had not deterred our 
 missionaries, traders, and financiers from needful and 
 essential efforts to better them. The "untrammeled 
 development" of the Chinese people had never had 
 any existence ; it was and is something unknown, and 
 the fact that there was no prospect of it was the cause 
 of the financial measures of safety and progress devised 
 by the governments, in the Six-Power Loan. China's 
 development was entirely due to pressure of the West 
 and the operation of the principles of the Open Door 
 
196 THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 and of extraterritoriality and the consistent interfer- 
 ence and influencing of China's intimate internal and 
 external affairs by foreign powers, including the United 
 States. 
 
 The *' immemorial principles" of our Government in 
 its relations to China and the powers had been those 
 of intelligent acceptance of the practical conditions 
 and inevitable facts of extraterritoriality, which we had 
 steadily practiced since not later than July, 1844, and 
 in principle since 1821. Extraterritoriality as practiced 
 in China -by first treaty sanction of the United States 
 for seventy-one years was in effect the supreme law 
 of interference in China's affairs, especially her private 
 internal affairs. They were not only the steel, con- 
 crete, and granite sills of all China's commercial and 
 industrial development, but they underlay the develop- 
 ment of Siam, they supplied the modern foundations 
 of the Empire of Japan, while our vast missionary 
 establishment in China, involving more wealth and 
 exerting a more extensive benevolence and practical 
 support to the Chinese people than all other missions 
 in China combined, had as its cornerstone the exercise 
 of rights alienated from China, gripping her innermost 
 vitals, and forming the widest of all scars across her 
 corporal sovereignty. 
 
 But we did not intend that the exercise of inter- 
 ference in the form of extraterritoriality should be fol-* 
 lowed by the alienation of territory and the transfer 
 of administration to foreign powers. Now that it had 
 come, the way was parted, and those friends of China 
 who have placed their faith upon our Government 
 could prepare for a last look at what they had stood 
 for and what our Government had stood for, because 
 China's treaties with all the powers, and all of her 
 
AMERICA'S RETREAT 197 
 
 treaties with the powers, except perhaps only Japan, 
 molded by us to enclose China, were turning to scraps 
 of paper. 
 
 Our movement into foreign affairs after the Revolu- 
 tionary War was so rapid that Washington's words 
 were hardly cold before we were involved in the Pacific 
 in the course of things which he prescribed in the 
 Atlantic. Almost at once we were involved, as we 
 now know was inevitable. We shunned the Atlantic, 
 and we have tried to ignore the Pacific, and this is the 
 result — the rebound of what has been regarded as 
 our immemorial principles. In contrast to the views 
 of the administration on the wisdom of its policy, the 
 moral interests at stake, represented in our missions 
 in China, immediately appealed to Washington for in- 
 tervention. Two missionary commissions from China 
 visited Washington. Their whole need was the Six- 
 power Loan, the natural operation of the combined 
 forces of the material interests of the great powers. 
 The theory and ideal of President Wilson and Secre- 
 tary Bryan were found to have no more weight in East 
 Asia than in Belgium. The practical affairs that were 
 deciding the future of China and the interests of all 
 powers there were the material interests of Japan, 
 directed by diplomacy, and enforced by the moral and 
 military support of her allies. 
 
 A policy that forced Secretary Root to abandon 
 contention against Russia's administration of Harbin, 
 and Secretary Knox to acquiesce in Russian and 
 Japanese claims to sovereign authority in the railway 
 zones of Manchuria, the abandonment of our treaties 
 with Korea, of our railway concessions north of the 
 Great Wall, the alienation of Outer Mongolia, which 
 Russia forcibly accomplished immediately after her 
 
198 THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 predatory pact with Japan, and forcible demands of 
 extension of special rights in agreement with a policy 
 based on principles the opposite of those of the Open 
 Door and equal rights, — a policy that aims at and 
 seeks the undermining of all treaties in China, and their 
 rewriting as those with Korea are rewritten, and of 
 Manchuria as well, — left nothing of our rights in 
 China unscathed. 
 
 When the loan policy of European nations began to 
 oppress American interests in China, both American 
 industry and the American Government were repentant 
 of the collapse of American finance in China in 1905, 
 when the Hankow-Canton Railway concession was 
 given up. The Government then sounded the finan- 
 ciers on means for the protection of American trade in 
 China. A financial alliance was formed by Jacob H. 
 Schiff and others in cooperation with J, Pierpont Mor- 
 gan, Sr., by which the Kuhn-Loeb-Rockefeller and 
 J. P. Morgan and Company financiers enlisted to sup- 
 port the Government. When the Government was 
 committed to the loan policy, and was already well 
 along in those adventures, Schiff said: "We did not 
 desire this business. We undertook it at the request of 
 the Government. I have impressed upon our repre- 
 sentatives that in their work in China they are to 
 remember that money is not our main object, but that 
 first of all we are working for the preservation of the 
 market for our industries. And I think Mr. Morgan 
 has said the same." 
 
 At that time it was not only a role which they had 
 not sought, but they did not seem to regard it as one 
 in which, as bankers, they were likely to win great 
 profits. The profits in view were those which came 
 from the expenditure of the loan money, and this came 
 
AMERICA'S RETREAT 199 
 
 to the manufacturers and traders of the country supply- 
 ing the loan, who paid their own price for the financial 
 services of the bankers. The system was exactly 
 suited to conditions, and guaranteed a position of 
 equality for American trade in competition with that 
 of other nations in China. The Hukuang Loan, the 
 Kinchou-Aigun Loan Contract, and the Currency Loan, 
 with the auxiliary Six-Power Loan, ere President Wil- 
 son withdrew government support, stood as the redemp- 
 tion of American rights of trade in China and East Asia. 
 American industry and finance were indebted to the 
 Government for placing them in a position for waging 
 the commercial battle in the Pacific, and the Govern- 
 ment was indebted to American finance and industry 
 for putting its diplomacy on its feet. The activity of 
 America was, primarily, an effort to repair the dangers 
 due to neglect in the past, and to fortify American 
 interests and the Open Door. The latter, weakened 
 through a period of years, was undermined. Our object 
 was to build up the sense of mutual welfare among the 
 powers throughout the great industrial regions of China, 
 and the development of Chinese self-reliance and self- 
 help ; and as there could be no permanent Open Door 
 without a competent China, to encourage self-com- 
 petence and self-defense. 
 
 "What I want to see," said President Taft, "is that 
 China develop her military strength and prowess so 
 she can fight. What we want, is that China should be 
 free in her own country. When she wants to build 
 railways in her own territory, I don't see why she 
 shouldn't build them. To have those powers who 
 obstruct her say she cannot, is intolerable. I cannot 
 tolerate that idea. I am very much interested in the 
 development of China. I don't care how she develops, 
 
200 THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 but I want her to develop, and so that we will have a 
 part in that development. I was interested in China 
 when I was out there, and I wanted to do something 
 for her. When Mr. Knox came to the State Depart- 
 ment, I told him I wanted special attention given to 
 China. The trade out there is going to be very im- 
 portant to us. We will gain more and more as time 
 goes on, and we must act so as to get our share. We 
 are investing money that will bring returns. We have 
 been criticized for backing Wall Street, but why 
 shouldn't we? Wall Street is our capital." 
 
 Speaking of the neutralization proposal which we 
 offered as a solution of the great question of the powers 
 in East Asia, Secretary Knox said: *'I believe they 
 will come to that yet. Although it was declined, it 
 was a great proposal, and a great plan. Germany 
 accepted it. Although Russia and Japan refused it, 
 they admitted that it might be acceptable at a future 
 time." 
 
 America's object of improving the mutual interests 
 of the powers and of China through the improvement 
 of China's finances and the growth of her industrial 
 wealth was perfectly understood by Japan, and also by 
 her allies. In the carrying out of this program, Japan's 
 opportunities were relatively greater than were those 
 of any other outside power, and she would have reaped 
 a relatively greater advantage. Progress and develop- 
 ment to make China and East Asia generally strong 
 and prosperous, so that it would be safe from further 
 European aggression, was what Japan had professed 
 to stand for. But her resentment was colossal, out 
 of all proportion to the relatively small and hitherto 
 modest nation which she had been up to this time. 
 This was the newest Japan. 
 
AMERICA'S RETREAT 201 
 
 These things shaped a situation that was a powerful 
 condemnation of our manner of party administration 
 in foreign affairs, which, by contrary opinion, in- 
 difference, incapacity, ignorance, cross-purposes or 
 viciousness, makes those affairs shuttlecocks of do- 
 mestic politics. But they were not so acute a damna- 
 tion as that which was silently administered by the 
 great business interests involved. Party administra- 
 tions whose cabinet positions, often in the gravest 
 moments, are at the mercy of their politicians, can up- 
 set precedents, repudiate undertakings, reverse policies. 
 But big business, whose trusts must be upheld with 
 integrity under numbers of presidents in succession, 
 under long-term bonds or lease contracts, often for 
 ninety-nine years, can be neither irresponsible nor 
 fickle. In this instance, forecasting the consequences 
 from a government elected on the issue of the evil of the 
 " money power " and of big business, on June 1, 1912, 
 six months before rotation in administration at Wash- 
 ington, the American banking group covenanted with 
 the European groups to stand together for five years, 
 and thus secured European protection in China, for 
 American interests for which they were already trus- 
 tees, and of which their own government, as I have 
 shown, thereafter as certainly washed its hands as 
 though it had been decreed by an inexorable fate. 
 
 From 1834, when our first envoy to East Asia, Ed- 
 mund Roberts, complained of the Government's neg- 
 lect to protect American trade in East Asia, resulting 
 in the formation soon after of our "India Squadron", 
 until after the Civil War, there were American officers 
 and statesmen who paid the strictest attention to for- 
 eign interests, keeping watch over the growth of those 
 great questions in East Asia and the Pacific which we 
 
202 THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 have in the twentieth century. It seemed now that 
 the anxiety expressed by Seward, 1852, in the Senate 
 Chamber over the bier of Henry Clay was justified, 
 when he said: "The great Hghts of the Senate have 
 set. . . . Who among us is equal to these mighty 
 questions ? I fear there are none." 
 
 With Europe, and all the problems of the world, 
 come to the Pacific, it is a question whether the suc- 
 cessors of Fillmore, Seward, McKinley, and Hay are 
 the statesmen "equal to these mighty questions" to 
 whom Seward referred. 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 China's Turn 
 
 On August 1, 1914, the world went to war. Almost 
 it might be said a new era began, sprung from events 
 which, as I have said, are the fiery, molten metal of 
 immediate Pacific history. The Pacific was congested 
 with the world's affairs, like the Atlantic. The Euro- 
 pean nations had their plans and alliances all made, 
 and diplomacy removed from the West to take up its 
 abode in Tokio. Going to war with Germany and her 
 ally, as provided by the Anglo-Japanese alliance, Japan 
 took Germany's outposts in East Asia. Following the 
 fall of Germany's principal defenses at Kiaochou, and 
 finding herself in possession of the larger part of Ger- 
 man interests in Shantung, Japan seized her oppor- 
 tunity in the absence of all rivals, save ourselves, and 
 fell upon China, as in the night. 
 
 Russia had gone far, after the "predatory pact", in 
 alienating Outer Mongolia. Japan undertook to re- 
 make the Pacific and East Asia. 
 
 Europe had no time for the consideration of the 
 situation, and the news fell unheard and unappreciated 
 in America, because the country and the press were in 
 a hyphenated condition over the World War, and Japan 
 had taken good care to conceal her prospective action. 
 The American correspondents of both the Chinese 
 
 203: 
 
204 THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 and Japanese capitals were successfully shepherded in 
 Tokio, where, under the war censorship, no news could 
 be sent out. Her ambassadors were made to deny the 
 truth, and to reassure the governments at London and 
 Washington. 
 
 The Associated Press Peking correspondent left 
 Japan with the knowledge of the situation, in haste for 
 Peking, and on February 11, 1915, the Associated 
 Press of New York, the London Times, and the Chicago 
 Daily News, were ojffered a "scoop" of the great news 
 of Japan's demands upon China, which had actually 
 forced themselves out of Peking. 
 
 The London Times printed a brief summary. The 
 Associated Press, representing more than eight hun- 
 dred of our newspapers, questioned the incredible news 
 and held it up a week, and in all the world only the 
 Chicago Herald, February 18, was bold enough to print 
 the text of Japan's demands. The Washington Post 
 mentioned it, but it was March 31 before the Asso- 
 ciated Press published the full text of Japan's program 
 for remaking the Pacific Hemisphere. The Govern- 
 ment at Washington placed a taboo on the subject 
 and buried it. China had given the State Department 
 the text of Japan's demands, but on conditions of 
 secrecy, so that our Government was not alone respon- 
 sible that we did not know. 
 
 There was a crisis in the political and news world. 
 And it was not the least of its events that the Asso- 
 ciated Press correspondent at Peking, humiliated by 
 the distrust of his work and motives, resigned and 
 withdrew from the Associated Press service. The situa- 
 tion called for a new consideration of Japanese affairs. 
 The testimony of her Foreign OflSce showed that Japan's 
 diplomacy was based on two things : the foreign 
 
CHINA'S TURN 205 
 
 evils that flooded Japan the first ten years the country 
 was open to foreign intercourse; and the abuse of in- 
 ternational right and justice by Russia, Germany, and 
 France in depriving her of the Liaotung Peninsula in 
 Manchuria, 1896, after her war with China. 
 
 It took Japan more than forty years to eradicate 
 the foreign evils that the floodgates of the Perry 
 Treaty admitted in ten. It is among the things which 
 make up the happy recollections of the two countries 
 that we helped her. Through the aid of our advisers, 
 and during the life in Japan of the last of them, Henry 
 Willard Denison, and by his multitudinous works in 
 Japan, they were all removed except the claim of 
 exemption from taxation of certain foreign property in 
 Yokohama, on which matter he was working at his 
 death. We helped Japan to recover control of her 
 commerce, to recover jurisdiction over foreigners sur- 
 rendered in her first treaties, and to correct all the in- 
 equalities in all her relations with foreigners, by which 
 her position before Western nations had been that of 
 an inferior. Some were unfair concessions; some 
 special rights, whose privileged proprietors had become 
 fastened like barnacles upon the State, and were the 
 cause of complications with foreign powers. With our 
 help they were pried off like barnacles until the ship of 
 state was free, and Japan had it to herself. 
 
 Then the inequalities put upon her by Russia, Ger- 
 many, and France she quickly adjusted by successful 
 war with Russia, — in which our help, rendered through 
 Denison and Roosevelt and our bankers, notably 
 Jacob H. Schiff, who found half her borrowed war 
 money, was preeminent, — and also by the assault 
 against German Kiaochou. 
 
 Japan then felt the call to "fulfill her destiny." 
 
206 THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 That was, to her, the achievement of the next most 
 desirable thing, namely, the prying loose from East 
 Asia of the great powers as she had pried off the bar- 
 nacles of favored foreigners and special privileges from 
 her own administration. If she could do so, inter- 
 national affairs in East Asia would be free from unwel- 
 come intervention and feel their freedom, even as 
 national affairs in Japan were free. Japan would then 
 have East Asia essentially to herself ; she would be no 
 less than leader. 
 
 This was Japan's present work. That she was 
 applying the simple rule to the powers which she applied 
 to her concessionaires and other unwelcome ones, and 
 against Russia, and that the rule of special right which 
 had been tried against her she was practising against 
 China, though, as Okuma then said, for "permanent 
 peace and good understanding", there can be no doubt. 
 There is no contrary evidence. It is the substance of 
 Japanese oft-professed "destiny." 
 
 In all respects Japan's diplomacy since 1905, by 
 which she found herself with the strongest allies in the 
 world standing in the open with no rival and no visible 
 enemy worthy the name of an antagonist, may be 
 found to be the masterpiece of statesmanship of this 
 century. 
 
 There was a day when Japan knew not diplomacy. 
 In 1895, the conformation of the international world 
 molded in the chancelleries of the great powers was 
 new to her. International complications were getting 
 pretty close when they reached Korea. She was sur- 
 rounded, and knew well enough, by the most powerful 
 of all human instincts, the military, that the gauntlet 
 was down, and she would have to fight her way out. 
 She chose the land route, for which she was prepared 
 
CHINA'S TURN 207 
 
 — yet not prepared. In the conflict with her first 
 opponent, China, she did not overlook the European 
 powers in the background, but in her haste to seize 
 territory she neglected to neutralize them. Conse- 
 quently she had to submit to a revision by Russia, 
 Germany, and France of her peace treaty with China. 
 Japan had overlooked something. It was diplomacy. 
 It was a shock ; few but sympathized with her. 
 
 The nicety with which Japan landed on her feet in 
 the present circumstances proved that diplomacy, the 
 lost animal of that flock which she had gathered up 
 and brought home from Western civilization in the 
 past, had been found. After the Japan-China War 
 she brought the animal home and tied him up between 
 the Foreign Office and the residence of the late Henry 
 Willard Denison, the American adviser. He was looked 
 over, and those who love Japan most must admit that, 
 black sheep as he was, Japan wickedly adopted him. 
 In the next war, 1904-1905, Japan had fortified herself 
 with an ally. Great Britain, and isolated her opponent, 
 so that the terms of her martial success when expressed 
 in treaty would be final, as they were in Portsmouth. 
 
 Nineteen years after there was no evidence of the 
 tyro. Japan's alliances and her diplomacy, in connec- 
 tion with the loan or Open Door activity of America, 
 especially the neutralization proposal, in all respects 
 bear out that statement. She had paid high prices 
 for her new position. The four years' process of her 
 love-making with Russia was one of the coyest of inter- 
 national courtships. Japan's overtures were several 
 times most humiliating and excruciating, as at one of 
 the embarrassing meetings, where, as I have said. 
 Prince Ito, one of the foremost men in the world, was 
 coldly assassinated, and died in the presence of the 
 
208 THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 Russian envoy. One of the results of her sacrifices 
 was that they placed her in the political line-up for 
 the approaching European war, all of whose details, 
 as also I have shown, were discussed in the field in 
 Manchuria in connection with the Russian-Japanese 
 War by European military agents, staff officers, and 
 journalists and publicists alike. Japan's success in the 
 quadruple alliance of Great Britain, Russia, France, 
 and Japan was one of the processes by which the 
 coalition against Germany and Austria was brought 
 about, with Japanese present mastery in China and 
 East Asia. 
 
 This was Japan's opportunity to carry Japan's plan 
 of empire to Peking. Since Secretary Knox's effort 
 of 1909, — awkwardly carried out but heroic, — to 
 erase "Article VI", and to remove the solvent that 
 was undermining the Open Door doctrine, Japan se- 
 cured the July 4, 1910, agreement with Russia for the 
 defense of the status quo; and, on the basis that a 
 unity of opinion between them constituted the key to 
 the China problem, in July, 1912, effected an under- 
 standing at St. Petersburg through Katsura for taking 
 in hand the destinies of East Asia. Japan had built 
 two additional railways in Eastern Manchuria, had 
 annexed Korea, which resulted in the alienization by 
 Russia of all Outer Mongolia, had secured concessions 
 for four railways in Mongolia, together with an exten- 
 sion of the lease of the railways carrying the right of 
 "sole and exclusive right of administration" of railway 
 territories to ninety-nine years. Railway sovereignty, 
 as set up by Japan, carried with it control of all com- 
 merce and development, and had removed all of Man- 
 churia and Eastern Mongolia from that China known 
 to us as the theater of the principles of the Open Door, 
 
CHINA'S TURN 209 
 
 and converted it into a joint sphere of special Japanese- 
 Russian rights. 
 
 Now came Japan, in the crisis of the world, with a 
 masterful diplomacy and arms, military lord of a help- 
 less nation of perhaps three hundred millions of people, 
 inhabiting a region in size and wealth of resources and 
 in all favorable points second to that of no other people 
 or nation, and demanded uncontrolled extension of 
 special rights, in five groups of demands. 
 
 Prefacing this with a sincere statement of a desire to 
 maintain the peace of East Asia, and under the inten- 
 tion of "strengthening the friendly relations existing 
 between the two neighboring nations", she required 
 the right to dispose of Kiaochou, which she had just 
 taken from Germany, concessions for railways and 
 mines, the control of railways, mines, and mining 
 regions, the extension of territorial and railway leases, 
 the lease of land, the right of residence and business of 
 all kinds, together with the extension of exterritoriality, 
 the veto over railways and over security for loans, 
 advisers to the Chinese, the disposition of islands or 
 ports, a market for munitions of war, for war and 
 arsenal materials and loans, and the right of police 
 masters and of advisers to the central government. 
 
 Aside from industrial concessions, loans, leases, and 
 police matters, Japan demanded the extension of sov- 
 ereignty and exterritoriality exercised by her under 
 special rights, in railway zones, and by equality of 
 right in treaty ports, to the country at large in Man- 
 churia and Eastern Mongolia. She demanded what 
 would be joint administration of the whole Japanese 
 sphere north of the Great Wall, while under the cir- 
 cumstances of her leadership she proposed to place in 
 Peking those advisers that could never permit to be 
 
210 THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 wrought for China such achievements as Denison 
 wrought for Japan. They would be government agents 
 imposed by diplomacy, and their business would be 
 necessarily that of loosening the powers from China. 
 
 Japan had disposed of the question of Russia, and of 
 us. She was now " handing it " to China. After 
 five years she was punishing China for attempting a 
 foreign policy, for presuming statesmanship. 
 
 It was better for Japan, if she could manage the 
 powers herself, to have them, rather than a Chinese 
 foreign policy, in East Asia. And now she could 
 manage them, and China also. There existed a com- 
 bination of circumstances in the world which gave 
 Japan a free hand in the Pacific, unhampered even by 
 ourselves. We did nothing. In the withdrawal by 
 President Wilson, Japan saw that we were abandoning 
 the position of defender of China's integrity, the Open 
 Door, and the treaties, and returning to the position 
 of their apologist. Russia stood united with Japan by 
 their almost innumerable "ententes", "understand- 
 ings", "supplementary clauses", "minutes", etc., and 
 their allies, behind whom they stood, stood in turn 
 behind them. It had been an open question for at 
 least six years whether the Open Door doctrine would 
 afford any appreciable protection to China in an emer- 
 gency. Here was the emergency, and one the like of 
 which China never had seen. The only barrier to the 
 realization of Japan's demands was the traduced Open 
 Door doctrine. 
 
 It is evident that Japan never would have embarked 
 so far upon her extensive program if she had not be- 
 lieved in a long duration of hostilities. Her action, 
 as a commentary on the World War, and upon her 
 opinion of the United States as the champion of the 
 
CHINA'S TURN 211 
 
 principles of equal rights of all nations in China, and 
 the integrity of China's territory and the preservation 
 of her sovereignty within it, was no less illuminating 
 than in what it revealed of how immense was the force 
 of the world, marshaled by Japan, in shaping affairs 
 the most vital to us of all possible issues in this world. 
 Japan fulfilled the terms of the Root-Takahira agree- 
 ment and of internationally written paper which she 
 had signed that is measured by weight rather than 
 counted, and paid her respects to the great powers who 
 had been signatories in it with her, by handing them 
 an excerpt of her demands upon the Chinese Govern- 
 ment numbering three hundred and twenty-six words. 
 The full text of her demands handed to China, amount- 
 ing to one thousand and thirteen words, is as follows : 
 
 Group I 
 
 The Japanese Government and the Chinese Government, 
 being desirous of maintaining the peace of Eastern Asia and 
 of further strengthening the friendly relations existing be- 
 tween the two neighboring nations, agree to the following 
 articles : 
 
 Article 1. The Chinese Government agrees that when the 
 Japanese Government hereafter approaches the German 
 Government for the transfer of all rights and privileges 
 of whatever nature enjoyed by Germany in the Province 
 of Shantung, whether secured by treaty or in any other 
 manner, China will give her full assent thereto. 
 Article 2. The Chinese Government agrees that within the 
 Province of Shantung and along its sea border no terri- 
 tory or island or land of any name or nature shall be 
 ceded or leased to any third power. 
 Article 3. The Chinese Government consents to Japan's 
 building a railway from Chefoo to Lungkow to join the 
 Kiaochou-Chinanfu Railway. 
 
212 THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 Article 4. The Chinese Government agrees that for the sake 
 of trade and for the residence of foreigners certain im- 
 portant places shall be speedily opened in the Province 
 of Shantung as treaty ports, such necessary places to be 
 jointly decided upon by the two Governments by sepa- 
 rate agreement. 
 
 Group II 
 
 The Japanese Government and the Chinese Government, 
 since the Chinese Government has always acknowledged the 
 specially favorable position enjoyed by Japan in South 
 Manchuria and Eastern Mongolia, agree to the following 
 articles : 
 
 Article 1. The two contracting powers mutually agree that 
 the term of the lease of Port Arthur and the term of lease 
 of the South Manchuria and Antung-Mukden Railway 
 shall be extended to the period of ninety-nine years. 
 Article 2. Japanese subjects in South Manchuria and East- 
 ern Mongolia in erecting buildings for the purpose of 
 trade and manufacture or for farming shall have the 
 right to lease or own land so required. 
 Article 3. Japanese subjects shall be free to reside and 
 travel in South Manchuria and Eastern Mongolia and 
 to engage in business and in manufacture of any kind 
 whatsoever. 
 Article 4. The Chinese Government agrees to grant Japanese 
 subjects the right to work mines in South Manchuria 
 and Eastern Mongolia, such mining places to be jointly 
 decided upon by the two governments. 
 Article 5. The Chinese Government agrees that in respect 
 of the two following subjects mentioned herein below, 
 the Japanese Government's consent shall be first ob- 
 tained before action shall be taken : 
 (A) Whenever permission is granted to the subject of a 
 third power to build a railway or to make a loan with 
 a third power for the purpose of building a railway 
 in South Manchuria and Eastern Mongolia. 
 
CHINA'S TURN 213 
 
 (B) Whenever a loan is to be made with a third power 
 pledging the local taxes of South Manchuria and 
 Eastern Mongolia as security. 
 Article 6. The Chinese Government agrees that, if the 
 Chinese Government in South Manchuria or Eastern 
 Mongolia employs advisers or instructors for political, 
 financial, or military purposes, the Japanese Government 
 shall first be consulted. 
 Article 7. The Chinese Government agrees that the control 
 and administration of the Kirin-Changchun Railway 
 shall be handed over to the Japanese Government, to 
 take effect on the signing of this agreement, the term to 
 last for ninety-nine years. 
 
 Group III 
 
 The Japanese Government and the Chinese Government, 
 desiring that the Japanese financiers and the Hanyehping 
 Company shall have a more direct and closer interest than 
 at present, and also desiring that the interests of the two 
 nations shall be further advanced, agree to the following 
 articles : 
 
 Article 1. The two contracting powers mutually agree that 
 when the opportune moment arrives, the Hanyehping 
 Company shall be made a joint concern of the two 
 nations, and they further agree that without the pre- 
 vious consent of Japan, China shall not by her own act 
 dispose of the property rights and interests of whatsoever 
 nature of the Hanyehping Company, nor cause the said 
 company to dispose freely of the same. 
 Article 2. The Chinese Government agrees that all other 
 mines connected with the Hanyehping Company and 
 mines in the neighborhood of mines so connected shall 
 not be permitted without the consent of the said Com- 
 pany to be worked by other persons outside the said 
 Company, and further agrees that in any mining opera- 
 tion which directly or indirectly affects the interests of 
 
214 THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 the said Company, the consent of the said Company 
 shall first be obtained. 
 
 Group IV 
 
 The Japanese Government and the Chinese Government, 
 with the object of effectively protecting the territorial integ- 
 rity of China, agree to the following special articles : 
 
 The Chinese Government agrees that no island, port, or 
 harbor along the coast shall be ceded or leased to any third 
 power. 
 
 Group V 
 
 Article 1. The Chinese Government shall employ forceful 
 Japanese as advisers in political, financial, and military 
 affairs. 
 
 Article 2. In the interior of China Japanese shall have the 
 right of ownership of land for the building of Japanese 
 hospitals, churches, and schools. 
 
 Article 3. Since the Japanese Government and the Chinese 
 Government have had many cases of dispute between 
 Japanese and Chinese police to settle cases, which 
 caused no inconsiderable misunderstanding, it is for this 
 reason necessary that the police of important places (in 
 China) shall be jointly administered (by Japanese and 
 Chinese) or that the (Chinese) police department of these 
 places shall employ numerous Japanese for the purpose 
 of organizing and improving the Chinese police service. 
 
 Article 4. China shall purchase from Japan a fixed ratio of 
 the quantity of munitions of war (say above 50 per 
 cent) or Japan shall establish in China a jointly worked 
 arsenal, Japanese technical experts to be employed and 
 Japanese material to be purchased. 
 
 Article 5. China agrees to Japan's right to build a railway 
 connecting Wuchang with Kiukiang and Nanchang; 
 also a line between Wuchang and Hangchou, and a 
 line between Nanchang and Chiaochou. 
 
CHINA'S TURN 215 
 
 Article 6. China agrees that in the Province of Fukien, 
 Japan shall have the right to work mines and build 
 railways and to construct harbor works (including dock- 
 yards) and in case of employing foreign capital, Japan 
 shall be first consulted. 
 
 Article 7. China agrees that Japanese subjects shall have the 
 right to propagate Buddhism in China. 
 
 China was in a tight place. The ideal compact for 
 her, of the great powers in the Six-Power Loan brought 
 about by Knox, she had destroyed by weakness and 
 perfidy. She could have closed it at one time by a 
 happy agreement of all concerned. But she quibbled 
 and lost, with the result that the Western powers were 
 practically eliminated, and she was now left to face 
 Japan alone. Japan had China in a situation out of 
 which there was no escape, and she proceeded to drive 
 home a lesson which she had long sought to administer. 
 
 The chief terror to the Chinese, thus caught alone 
 with Japan, comes from the guilt of having long played 
 the powers against each other and against Japan. The 
 mock magnanimity which Japan displayed toward her, 
 because of her conspiracies in the past with aliens, 
 something worse than gall, brought home to her the 
 penalty sensed by Kipling in the lines : 
 
 " The sins ye do by two and two, 
 Ye pay for one by one." 
 
 The reproach of truckling to foreigners, which Korea 
 mistakenly administered to Japan, Japan effectively 
 applied to China. Why did you do these things? You 
 were the one who brought exterritoriality upon us; Why 
 did you give away these concessions, these ports which we 
 have had to fight to get back for you ? are some of the ques- 
 tions China had to listen to from Japan. 
 
216 THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 President Yuan Shih-k'ai had asserted that the year 
 1915 would be the crucial year in the history of the re- 
 public. Its only friend was the United States. Japan 
 was against it as being a canker in a great, weak or- 
 ganism. Against the menace of 1915, having been un- 
 able to fortify itself with the proceeds of any foreign 
 loan, with no allies, without military defense and pro- 
 tection, and deprived in everything of the sanction of its 
 powerful neighbor and rival, China was left to her one 
 weak resource against her enemies — the boycott. 
 
 Realizing that a day of reckoning had come, all Chi- 
 nese communities abroad were secretly warned that the 
 Government at Peking could not officially countenance 
 boycott or open hostility to Japan, but that it expected 
 the utmost assistance which China's subjects could 
 peacefully exert. How to preserve the Open Door 
 and the equality of right which she had guaranteed to 
 the powers, when most of them were absent, fighting 
 for their lives, and those who were not refused to look 
 around, was a large order for China. She, too, was fight- 
 ing for her life. Her obligations to the powers, which 
 had always been her chief asset in her contentions with 
 her enemies, could not provoke the friendly mediation 
 of any one of them. China could only gaze at her antag- 
 onist, whose most conspicuous feature was Okuma, the 
 Japanese Premier. In 1911, when it was shown that 
 the revolutionary outbreak in China was going to over- 
 throw the Manchu dynasty, this man declared it to be 
 the end of China, for incontestable reasons which he 
 enumerated. China lacked all the essential elements 
 of salvation that had existed in Japan in a similar 
 emergency. Her Throne was not a rallying point upon 
 which was centered reverent affection, and there was 
 no large party or progressive leaders, who, to hereditary 
 
CHINA'S TURN 217 
 
 prestige, added high intellect, profound foresight, and 
 invincible courage. Moreover, she had no class of 
 trained officials necessary to create the highly scientific 
 organized government of modern times which her con- 
 tinued existence demanded, nor did she have the enor- 
 mous sums of money with which alone this program 
 could be realized. In consequence, China would 
 plunge into debt and destruction, said Okuma. 
 
 These views prevailed everywhere in Japan. Henry 
 Willard Denison, who was acquainted with the views 
 of every important public man in Japan, told me 
 shortly before he died that he held this opinion. That 
 China considered it an evil day for her when Okuma 
 became Premier was testified to by the understanding 
 among millions of Chinese that Yuan Shih-k'ai at- 
 tempted to arrange an understanding with Okuma be- 
 fore his elevation to the premiership. Okuma was a 
 popular leader, noisy and astute, cabling his views 
 abroad, and it required no imagination to perceive 
 what were the sensations of the Peking Government 
 when it saw his policy meeting with the popular 
 approval, without provoking one important native 
 protest. 
 
 Here in America, while the press refused to print 
 Japan's demands, China saw it circulating the cabled 
 views of Okuma, who said: "As Premier of Japan, I 
 have stated and now I again state, to the people of 
 America and of the world, that Japan has no ulterior 
 motive, no desire to secure more territory, no thought 
 of depriving China or other peoples of anything which 
 they now possess. My Government and my people 
 have given their word and their pledge, which will be 
 as honestly kept as Japan always keeps promises." 
 Which emphasized to China the fact that Japan erased 
 
218 THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 seven of her different international compacts of the 
 years 1895 to 1907, styled treaties, alliances, protocols, 
 agreements, arrangements, and conventions, in an- 
 nexing Korea ; that Ito declared that Japan would not 
 annex Korea; and that any statesman or politician 
 who prophesies what his country is going to do, or his 
 successors, is ridiculous, and only lets himself in for the 
 laughter of posterity. 
 
 Seven weeks after China sought publicity, she saw 
 the American press, in printing Japan's demands, 
 follow it with the statement by Okuma that "the 
 uneasiness and suspicion in the United States in con- 
 nection with Japan's negotiations at Peking are based 
 on misunderstanding and misinformation scattered 
 broadcast by interested mischief-makers." 
 
 "The negotiations between Japan and China are 
 nearing a satisfactory conclusion," said Okuma. "I 
 am now willing to state publicly that Japan is quite 
 confident of the rectitude and good faith of her position. 
 Japan is merely seeking to settle outstanding troubles 
 and questions in a way looking toward permanent peace 
 and good understanding." Without wasting time in 
 questioning the good faith of Japan, China might have 
 feelingly pointed out that perfect peace and good un- 
 derstanding were obtained by the young man and the 
 tiger, with the young man inside of the tiger. 
 
 In this most important crisis of years in East Asia, 
 threatening to make paralytic the Open Door doctrine, 
 our Government did nothing that might embarrass 
 Japan. It did nothing that might help China, either. 
 And its reasons were these : The first four groups of 
 her demands, Japan made public. "Group V" she 
 kept secret. But as it was the most important, and 
 took away all equality of rights from other nations, it 
 
CHINA'S TURN 219 
 
 was almost certain to become known before China could 
 be made to agree to it. 
 
 When this group of demands became known, and our 
 Government made an inquiry with regard to it, Japan 
 explained that she did not intend to press for "Group 
 V", at which our Government professed itself to be 
 satisfied. It "accepted" Japan's explanations, which 
 had a remarkable resemblance to that mendacity in 
 Japanese diplomatic intercourse which Townsend Har- 
 ris named and to which he testified, more than to any- 
 thing else. 
 
 As a matter of fact, there was no difference between 
 Japan's demanding "Group V" as a part of her mini- 
 mum demands, and putting it forward with them as a 
 threat and a blind to get China's consent to the other 
 groups. There was not only no moral difference, but 
 no real difference. She imposed secrecy upon China, 
 and badly as China wanted publicity, she was too well 
 terrorized to allow us to make Japan's demands known. 
 With China's only friend, America, entirely under the 
 mental domination of Japan, had China been terrorized 
 into accepting her demands outright, there never could 
 have been any withdrawal. Once an accomplished 
 fact, they always would have been a fact. There would 
 have been no possibility of retraction, and the obliga- 
 tions never could have been suspended. China would 
 have diplomatically hung herself. She was helpless, 
 and how she ever escaped doing it is indeed another 
 "Oriental mystery." 
 
 And as an answer to Japan's explanation of "Group 
 V" and her action respecting it, in relinquishing her 
 insistence thereanent, she formally notified China that 
 she would present its demands later ! 
 
 But we were again generous. 
 
220 THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 Any administration in this country which could 
 accept Japan's explanation would be fairly entitled to 
 be called the beau-ideal of ineptitude in diplomacy 
 and foreign affairs, and would furnish all the explana- 
 tion that is necessary of why there are sent abroad, 
 especially to the Pacific, men who have no knowledge 
 of the tasks which they accept, and are incapable of 
 collecting the necessary information, or of forming 
 correct opinions, respecting the welfare of our interests, 
 national dangers, obligations, and opportunities. 
 
 There was raised for us the whole question of our 
 position on the Pacific Ocean. While China was 
 "eating the bitter sausage", to use the words of her 
 sages, Europe was mad, America was hypnotized by 
 the fact that war was still possible in the world, and no 
 less than forty-six treaties, largely of our making, were 
 dissolving before Japan's continental policy of control 
 of China and its development, and forcible leadership 
 of East Asia. 
 
 Japan's demands and her onslaught upon Peking 
 involved the oldest foreign commercial and other na- 
 tional foreign rights and interests of the United States. 
 Our connection with East Asia, especially the mainland, 
 is identified with our national origin and birth. We 
 were involved there before the existence of any other 
 international power in East Asia, save Russia. If there 
 is any place abroad where we can justly and properly 
 interfere in foreign affairs, it is in East Asia, where our 
 ancient interests lie. 
 
 In 1784, in the start-off, ours were sea legs, and we 
 took to the water. We were shipmakers; our first 
 important export was ships, and the only international 
 and foreign thing we could do was in ships. We went, 
 in as straight a line as a ship could take, to China. 
 
CHINA'S TURN 221 
 
 Canton was our goal; we waited not for charts; we 
 took our school geographies from the little red school- 
 house down the road and fetched up on the Pearl 
 down Whampoa way, there by the pagoda, and we got 
 there in 1784. 
 
 We entered China, carrying with us the intention of 
 complete submission to China's laws on the principle 
 that "be they ever so unjust we will not resist them." 
 In 1821, two years before the enunciation of the Monroe 
 Doctrine, the last act of ours in adherence to that prin- 
 ciple was performed in surrendering at Canton the sailor 
 Terranova to punishment by Chinese law. In this 
 sense the Open Door and equality of rights doctrine is 
 older than the Monroe Doctrine in the Western Hemi- 
 sphere. 
 
 In 1844 we wrote extraterritoriality into the treaties 
 of China ; extraterritoriality, — the right of responsibil- 
 ity of foreigners only to their own laws, free right of 
 trade and of travel, freedom from taxation, and in cer- 
 tain cases and to large classes universal right of free 
 residence and free exercise, with no native restrictions 
 of volition and vocation, — the instrument that is 
 the means and defense of all interference in China's 
 internal affairs, the practice so much condemned by 
 President Wilson in defense of our imaginary virtues, 
 and in withdrawing from support of the Six-Power Loan. 
 By it seventeen nations in specific terms were let into 
 China, "each one of which nations must consent to the 
 abrogation or modification of the doctrine [of extraterri- 
 toriality] before China can exercise the functions of 
 an independent sovereign power." 
 
 Without burdening the reader with the treaty phrase- 
 ology, which he can observe at leisure, I will quote from 
 T. R. Jernigan, our eminent ex-Consul General and in- 
 
222 THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 ternational lawyer of Shanghai, who has witnessed fifty 
 years of our treaty's operations in East Asia : 
 
 "The Government of the United States was the first 
 to declare itself clearly and definitely with reference to 
 extraterritoriality and its application to China," says 
 Jernigan. The American-Chinese Treaty of July, 
 1844, set up the rights of foreign merchants and mis- 
 sionaries; "the first unequivocal announcement of 
 the principle was made in this treaty by the Govern- 
 ment of the United States." 
 
 Our participation and interference in the affairs of 
 China, internal and external, have expanded from that 
 until the present moment. In 1859, we again largely 
 rewrote and expanded the treaties, being the first to 
 extend the rights of missionaries in China to superiority 
 over the Chinese, and causing these rights to be incor- 
 porated at the same time in the French and British 
 treaties and in others later. The rights of missionaries 
 were the basis of the access to the interior of China, 
 soon enjoyed not only by the missionaries of all powers, 
 but by all travelers and merchants, all of whom enjoy 
 extraterritorial immunity and protection. 
 
 The principles of the Open Door, already bespoken 
 by Commander Kearny of our East India squadron, 
 also were formally set up with the writing of our first 
 treaty with China. This principle and the principle 
 of the right to exercise interference in China's internal 
 affairs went hand in hand. We proceeded to build up 
 both of these together. In 1868, we signed the Bur- 
 lingame Treaty for wider intercourse with Chinese in 
 this country, but in 1880, on account of the greater 
 benefit to China and in great contrast to that, we re- 
 vised it to our own supposed advantage and in further 
 defense of extraterritorial rights exercised in China. 
 
CHINA'S TURN 223 
 
 In 1899 and 1900, under the direction of John Hay, 
 our Government secured the formal adhesion of the 
 great powers to the written principles of the Open Door, 
 namely, equal rights of all nations in China and the in- 
 tegrity of China's territory and the preservation of her 
 sovereignty within it. Great Britain, Germany, France, 
 Italy, and Japan adhered, and the other protocol powers 
 followed, making eleven more conventions added to 
 the seventeen commercial treaties, in all twenty-eight, 
 in support of the principles of the Open Door and in 
 defense of the right of interference in China's internal 
 affairs established by the American treaty of 1844. 
 
 In 1901, with ten other powers, we signed the pro- 
 tocol for the adjustment of China's obligations entailed 
 in the Boxer uprising, and bylits terms, solemnly binding 
 ourselves to those powers and to China, we specifically 
 obligated ourselves to Interfere In China's internal 
 affairs for forty years. That omnibus protocol treaty 
 fixed the amount of the Boxer indemnity and made 
 one of its securities the salt revenues, one of China's 
 incomes associated in peculiar Intimacy with China's 
 most officially private internal affairs, about which 
 President Wilson confessed himself so sensitive. The 
 protocol is a sheaf of eleven treaties, which, added to 
 the twenty-eight, make thirty-nine treaties in support 
 of the principles of the Open Door, all in declaration 
 and defense of the practice of Interference In China's 
 internal affairs, whenever, In the minds of the treaty 
 powers, it seemed necessary to do so. 
 
 In emulation of our action in 1844 in first formally 
 enunciating and setting up the principles of the Open 
 Door and the principle of extraterritoriality in China 
 and of thirty-eight subsequent treaties and conven- 
 tions, two Russo-Japanese alliances, two Franco-Rus- 
 
224 THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 sian alliances, the Portsmouth Treaty, the Chlng-Ko- 
 mura Convention, and the Root-Takahira agreement 
 again reestablished and confirmed the principles of the 
 Open Door in China and the right of interference exer- 
 cised under the principle of extraterritoriality, making 
 in all forty-six living treaties, embodying the two 
 cardinal principles governing all her foreign relations, 
 and underlying the political existence of China, for 
 which we are directly responsible. Therefore, we have 
 certain definite, unmistakable, and unavoidable respon- 
 sibilities and obligations in China. 
 
 This was the building-up work. The breaking-down 
 processes were already exercising, their influence. The 
 fundamental weakness of the plan of relations between 
 China and the powers to which we first gave form was 
 extraterritoriality. Not content with this license, 
 dissatisfied powers commenced the alienation of China's 
 territory and the division of her sovereignty, thus 
 exercising administration and control not only over 
 their own people within her boundaries but over num- 
 bers of China's people and considerable areas of her 
 territory. This we were the providential means of hap- 
 pily checking, temporarily. 
 
 Then followed certain breaks in the defenses of the 
 principles of the Open Door doctrine. In 1904, unable 
 to restrain two of the East Asian alliance powers, Russia 
 and Japan, from military occupation of all of Korea, — 
 suzerain to China, — and the Manchu Kingdom of 
 three Chinese provinces adjoining, we made the insidi- 
 ous war zone agreement, which, though restricting land 
 military operations within China's borders, at the same 
 time sanctioned in them a flagrant violation of China's 
 integrity and neutrality. In 1909, we followed with 
 acquiescence in the rights claimed by Russia and 
 
CHINA'S TURN 225 
 
 Japan of sovereignty in the railway zones throughout 
 Manchuria. In 1910, we finally abandoned our Korean 
 treaty, which had become a mere scrap of paper. And 
 now we had passed into a state of demoralization and 
 neglect of foreign affairs in the Pacific worse than that 
 which characterized the State Department following the 
 death of John Hay. In Hay we had begun again, in one 
 man, to approach the stature of a world-citizen, such as, 
 in Seward, we had begun to realize. They were evi- 
 dences in our evolution of the pressure of the world to 
 accept its invitations to world councils and world re- 
 sponsibilities. Under Taft and Knox we had gone 
 farther than ever before. But now we had receded 
 farther than ever before. We did nothing. The pen- 
 dulum seemed at the farthest distance from its axis. 
 And with President Wilson's declared reasons for scut- 
 tling in China, immensely worse than none at all, we 
 were ready, now that the whole question of our position 
 in East Asia was raised, to be kicked out. 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 Getting Rid of the United States 
 
 In the whirl of party administrations in Washington, 
 merrily reversing each other before the populace and 
 the world, with the President answering for everybody, 
 the powers could only wonder where we stood. We 
 were making intermittent stabs at foreign affairs, and 
 there was no reason to expect anything for ourselves 
 but to get roundly trounced in the Pacific. We were 
 beyond Wilson's and the administration's depth there. 
 And the situation moved far out of our reach. 
 
 It moved so far that Japan, who was complete master 
 of the immediate destinies of East Asia, and who was 
 the self-constituted divinity to drive us out, got 
 somewhat anxious herself. As she was about to press 
 her demands upon China to a conclusion, her allies in 
 Europe sustained severe reverses at Neuve Chapelle, 
 Ypres, at Dukla Pass, and along the Baltic, while 
 Dunkirk was being shelled from the German lines 
 twenty miles away with the most powerful guns ever 
 constructed. Japan could not coerce China during 
 the misfortunes, exasperation, and anger of her allies, 
 nor the resentment of a world of her apologists and erst- 
 while friends, indignant over the Lusitania horror which 
 was fresh in mind, and who had just been made ac- 
 quainted with her demands. She suspended pressure, 
 
 226 
 
GETTING RID OF THE UNITED STATES S27 
 
 and held "Group V", — her new high-power diploma- 
 tie gun, — over China and the powers in East Asia, 
 pending the cast of the die in Europe. 
 
 Tricked out of its quarry, Japan's press complained 
 of its disappointment as it did in 1905 when the United 
 States was the means of a peace for Japan that deprived 
 her of what she thought were her just dues, as fruits 
 of her victories. And there was a sentiment that 
 Japanese troops should have been allowed to make 
 certain the supremacy of the Manchurian allies in 
 Europe, and therefore in Asia, by participation in the 
 war in Europe, in order to guarantee, by this and the 
 diplomacy of the ultimate peace treaties, the outcome 
 in Japan's great opportunity. But the intelligence 
 that directed the arm held over China and the powers 
 in East Asia had proclaimed only a truce. We won- 
 dered why this was, and took occasion to inquire into 
 the reasons. 
 
 One of the factors placed foremost by the "kultur- 
 ists" of Japan as a cause and justification of her rise 
 and expansion is overcrowding at home, a condition 
 that cannot be argued and a fact that must be dealt 
 with. Greater Japan claims a moral right to more land 
 as a sufficient territorial basis for the Greater Japan 
 which destiny promises. In her neighborhood others, 
 some of them alien rivals and possible antagonists, 
 have set up rights in territories which she desires or 
 where she desires rights, and are obstacles to her ambi- 
 tions. This is Japan's own case. 
 
 It has been pointed out that the "Man from Mars ", 
 if asked to pass on such claims, would give large regions 
 of other peoples' countries to needy Asiatic nations like 
 Japan — in other words erase treaties, crush bound- 
 aries. In any case Mars will erase and crush them, a 
 
228 THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 fact that is no longer debatable in Europe, or in the 
 Pacific, where the principle involved in the destruction 
 of Belgium and of Serbia is firmly set up, even by 
 the Manchurian allies. Both Russia and Japan jointly 
 determined after their war that unless diplomacy could 
 be made to weigh against boundaries, doctrines, treaties, 
 and agreements supported by capital and other physical 
 interests which they themselves did not possess, arms 
 must, greatly flattering Russia by justifying the policy 
 she had pursued in Manchuria. 
 
 But with Japan the slogan has always been "diplo- 
 macy first", and probably no political triphammer 
 ever had the lightning punching power to outdo Japan's 
 diplomacy, as is shown in her handling of China under 
 the conditions created by the European war, especially 
 by her demands upon China and by "Group V", the 
 new Japanese diplomatic gun which sent its high ex- 
 plosive diplomatic shells into the world's diploma+^''> 
 Dunkirk. Japan's diplomacy moved with seeming 
 instantaneousness. An anti-diplomatic government 
 like ours could no more follow it than a tortoise could 
 follow a hare. 
 
 The most recent declarations of those prominent 
 in the Japanese expansion movement show what Japan 
 meant. 
 
 "It is Japan's mission," says Count Okuma, Premier 
 of Japan, in Japan to America, "to harmonize Eastern 
 and Western civilizations. We Japanese are given 
 facilities to serve as interpreters of the Orient." 
 
 "I think it is a great mistake," says Fukui, Manag- 
 ing Director, Mitsu Products Company, in the same 
 message, "for any nation to try to do business in the 
 Far East without taking Japan's position geographically 
 and commercially into consideration. Instead of look- 
 
GETTING RID OF THE UNITED STATES 229 
 
 ing upon her as an opponent, they should consider her 
 as a business partner," etc. 
 
 Japan's efforts and aspirations to be the intermediary 
 between East Asia and the West are an attempt to fit 
 herself into the world as both an Asiatic and a Western 
 country. Her people have had many inventions for 
 doing this, from that of proving themselves not Mon- 
 golians to showing themselves the exponents of Mon- 
 roeism. And the main task in this was naturally that 
 of getting rid of the United States in East Asia, as we 
 now had no manner of doubt, because the Open Door 
 doctrine disposes of the place of mediator between 
 East Asia and the West, and interpreter of East Asia, 
 to all powers and peoples alike. Japan had set herself 
 the task of taking toll of the West, — of being the gate- 
 keeper to East Asia, of recovering those rights of the 
 Open Door doctrine for herself, — a diplomatic task 
 under the aegis of Mars. 
 
 This was no small order. Since August 1, 1914, it had 
 been a more important question with Japan than before 
 as to what she would call her policy. It is not easy to 
 displace the Open Door doctrine, which is the only 
 discoverable basis of honor and right in the conditions 
 which prevail in East Asia. How to displace it with 
 any semblance of decency was the problem. The Open 
 Door doctrine was still the mold of anti-bellum politics 
 in East Asia. We had great interests in China, and 
 our people were under the impression that in general 
 the principles of the Open Door prevailed. So were 
 most Britons, They believed those principles to be the 
 general basis of all their dealings respecting China. 
 Japan could not lightly discard the doctrine of the Open 
 Door until something was found to put in its place. 
 But it is obvious that with Russia as an ally in defense 
 
230 THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 of special right, supported by the entire quadruple 
 alliance, the only thing that could save the Open Door 
 doctrine would be its usefulness to Japan. 
 
 Opinion from Europe was evidence that the thought 
 uppermost in the minds of Japan's allies was whether 
 Japan was prepared and determined to supersede the 
 Open Door doctrine, no more welcome because it was 
 alien, with one of her own, and what its character and 
 limitations would be. In this they had a guide. On 
 December 26, 1899, Minister Aoki's words in accept- 
 ance of John Hay's Open Door proposal showed the 
 nature of Japan's adherence to that doctrine. His 
 words were : "Japan would have no hesitation in giv- 
 ing assent to so just and fair a proposal, providing all 
 the other powers concerned accepted the same." 
 
 This would at any time let Japan out, through the 
 loophole of claims of violation of the doctrine by Russia 
 and others. Likewise Russia could do the same re- 
 specting Japan and others, and the whole case of the 
 Open Door, by an interlocking damnation, could be 
 thrown into desuetude. In fact, Japan did us the 
 honor to send her political adviser, Henry W. Denison, 
 to our ambassador, Mr. O'Brien, to warn us that the 
 pledges given in the Open Door agreements came too 
 late. 
 
 As all this was an early premise in the question, it 
 presupposed an alternative, a stop-gap. Some sub- 
 stitute could find place, and Japan was prepared for 
 this also. After the Treaty of Portsmouth, when Secre- 
 tary Root let go the reins of power which Secretary 
 Hay had held in East Asia, allowing Komura to seize 
 them, and turned his attention to Latin America, 
 Japan followed us. We could not be let off scot free. 
 She pursued us as far as Magdalena Bay, and having 
 
GETTING RID OF THE UNITED STATES 231 
 
 raised that question, now known as an aim for a Japa- 
 nese naval base on the American coast, there was in- 
 vented in Japan the idea of a "Monroe Doctrine" for 
 East Asia. 
 
 In view of the committal of Japan to Komura's plan 
 of expansion and "Greater Japan", the idea was 
 grotesque. Its merits rested solely in its appeal to the 
 vanity and credulity of the great English-speaking 
 people of America. To carry out Komura's plan of 
 state for unrestricted and indefinite expansion upon the 
 continent, Japan had to eliminate us, the Open Door 
 country. It was a kind of swallowing act, ludicrous, 
 and showing that the champions of national policy were 
 rather hard put in order to name Komura's plan of 
 state before the world. 
 
 The attempt of turning the Open Door into a 
 "Monroe Doctrine" had its awkward side. Mon- 
 roeism in the Western Hemisphere is support of the 
 weak in their right of unhampered self-development. 
 Japan's needs — she asked everything — which are 
 the soul of her policy, were the exact negative of this. 
 Komura in the beginning declared before the Diet the 
 policy of relieving the overcrowding at home in Japan 
 by free immigration into Korea and South Manchuria 
 as a part of the new plan of state. Not long after this 
 began, Korea was annexed ! In five years Japan's 
 immigration had expanded beyond her concessions in 
 South Manchuria, and she had now forced from China 
 land and industrial rights for Japanese, not only through- 
 out South Manchuria, but Eastern Mongolia and part 
 of Chihli. 
 
 In Latin America there is no such thing as extraterri- 
 toriality, or any division of sovereignty, or interference 
 of outsiders in the foreign affairs of its countries. 
 
THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 Backed by military force, Japan not only exercises but 
 extends in China all of these, to which she adds control 
 of all commerce, industry, and development in the line 
 of her expansion. Lacking everything which China 
 has to give, Japan, therefore, in the disguise of the 
 Monroe Doctrine for East Asia, is a veritable wolf 
 in sheep's clothing. The absurdities of the adventure 
 prevented any authoritative enunciation of it in Japan, 
 and its most intelligent champions grasped the nettle 
 at the outset by admitting that from the point of view 
 of the Japanese a Monroe Doctrine in East Asia 
 would mean the control of China by Japan to the exclu- 
 sion of all other States. Between the "wolf in sheep's 
 clothing" and the "dog in the manger" thus offered 
 to her, the Monroe Doctrine of East Asia held out no 
 tenable position. 
 
 In the meantime, under headway of her advance 
 upon special right as against the mutual Open Door 
 interests of all parties, the end of her policy and the only 
 one which by her plan of state she could pursue was that 
 of a division of China with Russia, or with Russia, 
 Great Britain, and France. Anything else was impos- 
 sible, unless, in addition to prying the barnacles of 
 foreign politics from the Chinese ship of state, Japan 
 could drive France and Great Britain from the south 
 and Russia from the north. This was the time to do 
 it, especially if, under the provisions of her demands 
 enforced against the Government at Peking and held 
 over it by "Group V" for arsenals, armament, and ad- 
 visers and aids, she could arm in her own behalf the 
 myriad Chinese. 
 
 It was obvious that the councils of Japan would 
 not enunciate any Monroe doctrine in East Asia as a 
 substitute for the doctrine of the Open Door. It is 
 
GETTING RID OF THE UNITED STATES 233 
 
 incompatible with Japan's plan of state invented by 
 Komura because it does not look into the future. Fur- 
 thermore, it would interfere with her policy, of which 
 her sudden and almost boundless demands made upon 
 China, the success and realization of which depend upon 
 the duration of the European war, are an expression. 
 Should the European war cease with unexpected sud- 
 denness, the domination in East Asia of the military 
 group of the powers, in view of Japan's course now 
 exposed by China, would be dissolved, and the capital- 
 istic group would be restored. 
 
 I Just when Japan would have pressed home her pro- 
 gram, reverses to the Manchurian allies in both theaters 
 of war caused her for the time being to suspend demands 
 which she warned China of renewing. It was obvious 
 that in prying loose the barnacles of the foreign powers 
 from the ship of state in China, as with American help 
 she scraped the ship of state clean from incumbrances 
 at home, Japan had a substitute for the doctrine of the 
 Open Door. Would she throw off the mask and declare 
 it.? 
 
 None of the'Manchurian allies since 1903, and the Rus- 
 sian-Japanese War, but had been playing a hazardous 
 and terribly dangerous game, as Europe shows. But 
 for Japan this was the time to try it again. She must 
 face some kind of reckoning. Should her allies win, 
 they would be able to reimburse themselves in Europe. 
 And it should not be hard to satisfy them in East Asia, 
 with ourselves out of it. For with undiminished re- 
 cuperative power and increased power of aggression and 
 retention, they could realize in most of Japan's gains 
 all the advantages of equal rights with her. To each 
 of these four powers, so far as they possess the ability 
 and determination to exercise force, equal right is 
 
234 THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 assured by alliance and the automatic duplication on 
 each of their frontiers of most of the advantages gained 
 by Japan. Should they lose, Japan must reckon with 
 them in China and with their conquerors also. 
 
 The Briton has tolerated the course of Japan since 
 the alliance with misgivings and diflSculty. When, after 
 the first horrible and deadening British catastrophe, 
 
 — twelve thousand troops sacrificed at Neuve Chapelle, 
 
 — came the reverses to the Manchurian allies at Ypres, 
 in the Carpathians, and along the Baltic, the terrible 
 moment was reflected in Tokio in connection with 
 "Group V." Japan gave way. On May 7, China's 
 Government and the officials of the foreign legations in 
 Peking were surprised to find that after insisting upon 
 the acceptance of her demands, Japan suspended her 
 ultimatum and postponed discussion of all of the seven 
 articles of "Group V" except one which had been 
 previously agreed to affecting her "sphere" of Fukien 
 Province. Simultaneously there was given out in Tokio 
 the suggestion that "the influence of the Elder States- 
 men resulted in further concessions being made to 
 China in the belief that the lasting interests of the 
 empire could best be served by convincing the powers 
 that Japan is guided by a spirit of justice and a desire 
 for the preservation of peace in the Orient." 
 
 The rising anger of Great Britain over Japan's doings, 
 complicated by the stinging pain and embarrassment at 
 Ypres, was expressed in all her foremost newspapers — 
 the London Times, The Daily News, The Morning Post, 
 the Telegraph, The Manchester Guardian, etc. The 
 Elder Statesmen had been in eclipse for a decade. They 
 began to go under a cloud shortly after Komura re- 
 turned from Portsmouth in 1905, because, headed by 
 Prince Ito, they defended and stood by the treaties and 
 
GETTING RID OF THE UNITED STATES 235 
 
 Open Door agreements respecting Korea, which Ko- 
 mura's plan of state, brought from Portsmouth, had 
 condemned. They all but vanished when, seeing the 
 futility of opposing the Komura "kulturists", who were 
 bent upon national expansion on the continent, Ito 
 saved that body from complete eclipse for the time being 
 by joining the "kulturists." He did all he could to 
 save the Elder Statesmen by, at least for the time, doing 
 the behests of their opponents, for whom he lost his life. 
 Their influence then continued to wane; the erasing 
 of the treaties and agreements over Korea and its 
 successful annexation without protest from the powers 
 deepened the shadow of their eclipse; and between 
 Komura and Kato it was believed at the beginning of the 
 World War that the Elder Statesmen had practically 
 disappeared. They owed their resurrection to Neuve 
 Chapelle, Ypres, and Dukla Pass ! — which also gave 
 the treaties in East Asia a breathing spell. 
 
 The fact that Japan entered upon the program dis- 
 closed by China, when the latter made known Japan's 
 double demands, was prima facie evidence that Japan 
 intended to carry it through. Japan's complaint that 
 China violated her agreement not to discuss the nego- 
 tiations and Japanese relations with others was trifling, 
 since China has never had any defense against modern 
 powers, except an appeal to the tribunal of world 
 opinion and to third powers, and always has been 
 forced to inform others. 
 
 Japan knew perfectly that China would be obliged 
 to make known and would make known to the powers 
 her demands, and that we, as the late guardians of the 
 principles of the Open Door, were out of it, and would 
 give Japan a free hand. Japan, therefore, could have 
 intended but one thing : with American intervention 
 
236 THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 annulled, Germany's interests eliminated, and her 
 colleagues of the Manchurian alliance approaching a 
 position where for their sacrifices they stood to com- 
 pensate themselves in Europe, and in which even the 
 need of recuperating would for a long time make them 
 unexacting partners in East Asia, so long as they 
 could imitate in their own spheres there what Japan 
 might do in hers, Japan could realize Komura's policy 
 and plans of state with a position stronger and more 
 securely intrenched on the continent than ever before. 
 The inevitable disclosure of her address to China would 
 have meant nothing if that address had succeeded. 
 By relinquishing a large part of the pressure upon China 
 and upon the treaties, contained in "Group V", Japan 
 escaped at least part of the world's odium. 
 
 Japan had hesitated. She had relinquished "Group 
 V" in her ultimatum, though she had warned China 
 that it was only suspended. Was the victory for the 
 treaties only temporary? As faded the memory of 
 Neuve Chapelle, Ypres, and Dukla Pass, by which the 
 Elder Statesmen alone were able to hold the "kul- 
 turists ", would the courage of the Government return. 
 Who was in control with the young Emperor at Tokio 
 — the "kulturists" remaking the world of East Asia, 
 or the Elder Statesmen honoring the treaties ? Was it 
 in Okuma, or Kato, to be as bold as Komura, and throw 
 off the mask ? 
 
 Had no setback occurred to the Manchurian allies 
 in Europe, perhaps nothing could have prevented Japan 
 throwing off the mask at once. On the other hand, 
 with "Group V" still suspended over China, and in the 
 prospect of a long war, Japanese diplomacy no doubt 
 saw its final victory, the rapid political elimination from 
 East Asia of all Western powers not allied with her. 
 
GETTING RID OF THE UNITED STATES 237 
 
 and the decline coincidentally of those that were, 
 until the automatic elevation of the Japanese Asiatic 
 doctrine of sole control in China and domination of the 
 Pacific was an appreciable reality. Six months after 
 the opening of the World War we could see this situa- 
 tion behind the mask, and the prospect held over us 
 of Asia and Europe upon our backs in China and East 
 Asia, and Japan so situated as to call us to account in 
 the Western Hemisphere. 
 
 It is but a question of time, — short and urgent, as 
 this galloping history shows, — until a comprehensive 
 reckoning to readjust the relations across the Pacific 
 will set in. It is only a question of a more definite de- 
 termination of the fate of China, and the relative 
 placidity of East Asia, until the scene of Asiatic in- 
 fluence and European-Asiatic power in the Pacific will 
 be shifted to the Western Hemisphere and begin to 
 imitate on the eastern shores of the Pacific the interfer- 
 ence which the westward trend of civilization until now 
 has worked on the western. As a reckoning not unlike 
 an earthquake, or a tidal wave, or both, is the only 
 one anticipated, a knowledge of our footing in relation 
 to Japan is the first essential to us. 
 
 The United States hitherto has been the good genius 
 of rightful intercourse and mediation between East 
 Asia and the West, and between China and all countries. 
 Its treaty of 1844, which was the model of subsequent 
 treaties of all powers, including Japan, furnished the 
 basis of practical intercourse with, and progressive 
 development of China. In 1854-1857 America opened 
 the door of Japan to all nations, setting the model for 
 all treaties with her, and stood by her, defending her 
 integrity, sovereignty, her right to develop, her dignity 
 and amour fwpre, until she was secured in all her rights. 
 
238 THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 some of which we assisted her to recover after she had 
 surrendered or lost them. 
 
 After twenty years of intercourse almost unclouded 
 by suspicion on the part of Japan, America first crossed 
 Japan's path in Korea. In 1876, by a treaty, she 
 thought to open Korea. She maintained a legation 
 at Seoul, but the relations were so inhospitable that 
 General Saigo, Minister of War, volunteered to go to 
 Korea as an envoy in order that, by losing his life there, 
 he might give Japan a casus belli, furnishing her a basis 
 for conquest of Korea. 
 
 So, in 1880, when Commander Shufeldt opened Korea 
 to the world, Japan resented it. She had already taken 
 the Loochoo Kingdom, which General Grant, on evi- 
 dence supplied by the researches of our Doctor McCar- 
 tee, an eminent servant of Japan, had shown belonged 
 to China, and by his advice of moderation obviated war. 
 We had used our established diplomacy of consideration, 
 and had first consulted with Japan respecting Korea, 
 but Japan refused us assistance. It was Japan's first 
 political mistake in American-Japanese relations re- 
 specting the Asian continent. The two countries should 
 have worked together. When Shufeldt reached Che- 
 mulpo to sign the treaty, he found there a Japanese 
 war vessel, whose commander tendered his services, 
 and would have rectified his Government's mistake, 
 but it was too late — China had arranged the treaty 
 for signature. 
 
 Japan forgot this not, neither against us nor against 
 China, as was shown in 1894, at our second crossing 
 of Japan's pathway. Japan put the American-Korean 
 treaty to a test. With China we had put in that 
 treaty, — copied from our treaty with China, — the 
 mutual obligation to use good offices to rectify diffi- 
 
GETTING RID OF THE UNITED STATES 239 
 
 culties with third parties. About to become the 
 victim of Chinese-Japanese rivalry, Korea appealed 
 for our intervention, China followed. We declined 
 both, as well as the twice presented solicitations of 
 Great Britain. We avoided any embarrassment of 
 Japan in her policy for preeminence in Korea as against 
 China, but extended our services to all, and on Novem- 
 ber 6, 1894, President Cleveland offered his services 
 in behalf of peace, which were accepted, and for which 
 he was thanked by the Emperor of Japan by letter on 
 conclusion of a peace treaty. 
 
 On December 26, 1899, Japan accepted America's 
 proposition of the Open Door doctrine on the continent. 
 She had taken Formosa from China, and had tried 
 to hold a large section of Manchuria, and the phraseol- 
 ogy of her reply was both an admission of her own guilt 
 and an accusation against others. Our proposition was 
 more than welcome to Japan because of the rapid ag- 
 gressions of Russia in her direction. At this time our 
 pressure in support of the Open Door constituted the 
 only defense which Japan had against Russia, especially 
 in 1902, when we protested against Russia's aggressions. 
 
 The man John Hay, in life and in death, was one of 
 America's greatest contributions to Greater Japan. 
 His passing was a providential blessing to its promoters. 
 Hay died, and American policy weakened. The dis- 
 integration of the tie uniting the Open Door powers 
 began. Seeing this, Great Britain turned to the power 
 that was superseding us, Japan, and on January 30, 
 1903, the two formed an alliance. Disintegration of 
 American- Japanese mutual interests began, i.e., the 
 mutual interests of the Open Door, by which Japan 
 turned from the principles of the Open Door to those of 
 special right. She no longer had any use for John Hay. 
 
240 THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 For twenty-five years Japan had no ground for com- 
 plaint, and, in fact, may have had additional cause to 
 regret that she had not lent her assistance to America 
 in 1880. Then in 1905 we crossed Japan for the third 
 time, when we were parties to a peace treaty that left 
 her to find in China the expected fruits of her victories 
 over Russia, by sharing there jointly with Russia 
 special rights upon which Russia's conquest was based, 
 and which would serve as a shield against America and 
 the principles of the Open Door. 
 
 But if we crossed her here, also we assisted her to 
 gain the basis of her policy, as I have shown. Seeing 
 we were no more than a qualified moral force in world 
 affairs affecting East Asia, and that she had nothing to 
 gain by continuing with us, Japan turned to the special 
 rights powers, notably Russia, with whom she culti- 
 vated an understanding. Here began the pilgrimage 
 of Japanese diplomacy toward the goal of alliance of 
 the Manchurian allies, which is the quadruple alliance 
 of Europe and of the World War. 
 
 In 1909 we drew the herring across Japan's trail in 
 our opposition to Russian administration of Harbin, 
 and in the proposal for the neutralization of the railways 
 of Manchuria, which uncovered the policy of Komura 
 and Japan's abandonment of the principles of the Open 
 Door and her coalition with Russia in claims of special 
 rights. Our proposal was obnoxious to Japan because 
 she had already reached an entente with Russia, and 
 in her Russian agreement, the "predatory pact" of 
 July 4, 1910, the Open Door received a Japanese con- 
 demnation, in its nature a death sentence. 
 
 Japan had waged her war with Russia on the claim 
 of defending the principles of the Open Door on the 
 continent, both in Korea and China, against the claims 
 
GETTING RID OF THE UNITED STATES 241 
 
 of special right and the aggressions promoted on the 
 basis of those claims. Since that moment, 1905, when 
 Komura returned to Japan and suffered the resentment 
 that was visited upon us jointly, it has been Japan's 
 unwearying problem how and when to get rid of us in 
 East Asia, and of our ubiquitous and inflexible doctrines 
 involved in the Open Door — the sanctity of China's 
 frontiers, the inviolability of her sovereignty, and the 
 equality of right and freedom of all nations in trade, 
 commerce, and development. And Komura straight- 
 way inaugurated the elimination process with the 
 words which he put into the mouths of the Chinese, 
 opposing the introduction of American capital into 
 the railway in South Manchuria. But especially has 
 this been Japan's determination since our efforts, 1909, 
 to annul "Article VI" of the Russian agreement with 
 China of 1896 by mutual consent of the powers and for 
 mutual benefit, in order to remove the cause of viola- 
 tion of China's sovereignty by Russia and Japan in 
 coalition. 
 
 With the conclusion of the Treaty of Portsmouth by 
 which, with our cooperation, Japan lost the immediate 
 fruits of victory which she expected from Russia, special 
 right which she usurped, not Open Door, in China, was 
 Japan's aim. Russia had the former, we the latter, 
 and that is why Japan, on July 4, 1910, threw us over 
 for Russia. Japan afterward tried to justify her re- 
 jection of the proposal for neutralization of the Man- 
 churian railways so as to try and make it harmonize 
 with the principles of the Open Door. But it did not 
 interfere with her program. In 1910, she annexed 
 Korea, though in the face of all denials of intention to 
 do so made for the Emperor by Prince Ito. 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 
 Defeat in the Pacific 
 
 Although by the time the World War opened we 
 were hardly remembered at Peking, except in feelings 
 which we did not care to arouse, our situation respect- 
 ing the reckoning promised in the future theater of 
 the world's great events could not stay the unbridled 
 iconoclasm of the people of California and the Govern- 
 ment of the District of Columbia. 
 
 We were not prepared for sacrifices where we had 
 spent so much and gained so little. Since 1856 our 
 only assets in China and Japan had been Asiatic good 
 will. Our cultural interests, missions and schools, and 
 everything else, were a great liability. Our trade with 
 Japan, never more than a small fraction of the aggre- 
 gate prophesied for us when Japan was opened to 
 trade sixty years before, represented a golden gift to 
 her of an annual balance of twenty-five millions of 
 dollars and over. And it had ever since been seen 
 that the only hope of commercial equality and mutual 
 gain, to say nothing of recouping ourselves, lay in the 
 development of trade with China. Yet it was not 
 until 1902 that our exports to China for the first time 
 exceeded imports — and alas, it was a combined 
 famine gift ! and an ephemeral war trade ! 
 
 It appeared that American trade, or the increase in 
 
 242 
 
DEFEAT IN THE PACIFIC 243 
 
 commercial intercourse across the Pacific, declined as 
 trade and trade facilities increased, especially trade 
 intercourse with China. During the whole decade, 
 since 1900, of our struggle for the principles of the 
 Open Door, American trade with China persisted in 
 its downward course. This may be seen by setting 
 aside traffic due to Russian development in Manchuria, 
 the Russian-Japanese War, and Japanese expansion in 
 China. The whole prosperity of American trade during 
 that decade was directly due to war, rather than to 
 the Open Door doctrine. Of the American trade of 
 fifty-eight million six hundred thousand dollars in 1905, 
 about thirty-one and one half millions was a war trade 
 paid for by European and American money. This 
 trade disappeared in two years without being replaced 
 in the development that followed the war, although 
 the commercial treaties of all nations had been revised 
 in the interests of trade, and in 1906 sixteen additional 
 trade marts were opened in Manchuria. Notwith- 
 standing large quantities of American flour contributed 
 for famine relief and sent to the Yangtse this year and 
 the next, that was not trade, but swelled the trade 
 reports of those years, the decline continued. 
 
 The facts presented by the statistics of the years 1901- 
 1910 were sufficient to cause the Government to investi- 
 gate the whole Open Door policy. Results warranted 
 but one conclusion : Trade was coming under control 
 of organized foreign finance and large industrial de- 
 velopment, and European money and trade specializa- 
 tion were being extensively applied in the development 
 of China, to turn the trade to Europe and to Japan. 
 
 In the light of these facts, the conditions of American 
 trade in the Pacific at the end of the Open Door 
 decade, 1900-1910, suggested a commercial, political. 
 
244 THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 and diplomatic defeat. The maximum annual trade 
 with China for the decade was seen to be only about 
 twenty-seven million dollars when shorn of its war 
 quota, only about our annual cash gift to Japan. This 
 of course reduced the decline per cent., covering the 
 succeeding half of the decade, but it emphasized the 
 fundamental character of the decline, and moreover, 
 it showed that America was the only country that 
 did not prepare for the post-bellum prosperity fore- 
 seen by other nations, especially Japan, and loudly 
 prophesied by Count Okuma. Japan and Germany 
 reaped the profit of this prosperity. Britain held her 
 own, and America, while satisfied with what Europe 
 would throw to her after it had taken the lion's share, 
 was sailing only with the wind, content to see the in- 
 crease of trade in the Pacific go to Japan and to 
 increase her gold bonus to Japanese commerce. 
 
 The story of the decline of American exports to 
 China from the year 1905 is graphically pictured in 
 the sinking figures : first, roughly, fifty-eight millions 
 to thirty millions, to twenty-three, then to twenty-one, 
 to nineteen, and then to fifteen millions — little more 
 than a fourth of the maximum. 
 
 Our consular officers gave the story of the com- 
 mercial fray in their dispatches of 1910. That year 
 American oil was reported as making a good stand in 
 the zone of Hongkong and southward. For six months 
 American kerosene captured Sumatra oil markets in 
 Southern Manchuria. But it was making a hard fight, 
 showing an advance in quantity over 1909 of twenty- 
 nine per cent., but a decline in price of twelve per cent. 
 It was fighting a rate war with the oil of Russia, the 
 Dutch Indies, and Japan. But in the best light of 
 interpretation, the Government's reports from China 
 
DEFEAT IN THE PACIFIC 245 
 
 were bitter reading for the captains of American in- 
 dustry and the friends of trade expansion in the Pacific. 
 In two years American cottons at Shanghai decreased 
 over sixty per cent., while British increased fifty per 
 cent., and Japanese from thirty per cent, in some 
 fines, to fifty-seven and one half times original sales. 
 
 The American flour trade was captured by com- 
 petitors in all the regions between Shanghai and 
 Hongkong. American cotton goods, previously found 
 everywhere in Manchuria, had been replaced by 
 Japanese and Indian. In one year flour imports had 
 fallen from $305,127 to $73, — the trade taken by 
 Japanese, Russian, and Chinese flour. 
 
 The reasons given for the decline of our trade with 
 China were that in all the important lines, such as 
 cottons, flour, and steel, the sales and distributions 
 were in the hands of foreigners and were left to shift 
 for themselves, and also that American trade received 
 no assistance from the American Government. The 
 consuls constantly emphasized the decline in American 
 goods handled by "middlemen." While our trade was 
 left to shift for itself, the economic and political meas- 
 ures of other nations for trade extension struck heavy 
 blows against our own. Our competitors first sub- 
 sidized their ships, even Russia, and then secured 
 large loans to China, by which great volumes of trade 
 were controlled. But this movement, led by Great 
 Britain and France and imitated by Germany, found 
 its most remarkable exponent in Japan. 
 
 One of the recurring statements in the American 
 reports from East Asia on the decline in our trade 
 read thus: "At the same time Japanese goods show 
 large increases, British stationary, etc." Japan's com- 
 merce, especially since the Russian-Japanese War, was 
 
246 THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 elaborately supported by subsidies, loans, and encour- 
 agement from the Government. Japan's development 
 exceeded the expectations of the Japanese Govern- 
 ment, notably of the "war cabinet" which had in it 
 such men as Marquis Ito, Count Inouye, Count 
 Katsura, and others. The opponents of this cabinet 
 professed to believe in a great industrial and commer- 
 cial expansion. The results astonished the prophets. 
 Our traders noted that Japan, with Manchurian 
 coal, successfully competed in the coal trade with the 
 Chinese mines, and that Japanese flour mills in Man- 
 churia, financed by Japanese government money loaned 
 at four per cent., met all competition. The losses to 
 our flour trade were not made up by the additional 
 trade in American milling machinery, extensively used 
 in Manchuria. By the development of the Hokkaido 
 and the Yalu River timber zones, Japan also diminished 
 our timber export from the Pacific coast. Japanese 
 built certain kinds of rolling stock for the South Man- 
 churian Railway, of better finish and material, at less 
 cost than did American builders. 
 
 Japan had nationalized all important industries by 
 lending them state funds. She had extended ship 
 subsidies and the state monopolies of salt, camphor, 
 tobacco, and the railways. The boasted "command 
 of the Pacific" by us Japan had determined to dispute, 
 and, as Baron Kaneko said, "also do her best to con- 
 trol the Far Eastern markets." 
 
 When we decided to enter the competition for trade 
 in China and the preservation of the Open Door, 
 Japan was prepared to meet the measures taken by 
 other powers by measures of her own. On October 14, 
 1908, the Emperor of Japan began stimulation of 
 Japanese commerce and trade in an edict based on 
 
DEFEAT IN THE PACIFIC 247 
 
 the wish "to share fully in the benefits of the general 
 amelioration and improvement" in the world. He 
 pointed out that the development of the national re- 
 sources was necessary in order to keep pace with the 
 constant progress of the world, and to participate in 
 the blessings of civilization. 
 
 Thus the Japanese Throne met the most vital of 
 Japan's problems, affecting her aspirations to a pre- 
 dominating influence in the Pacific. Its edict was 
 characterized by Japanese critics as unsurpassed for 
 simplicity, dignity, and weighty import by any docu- 
 ment of similar historic importance. It seemed to 
 make a profound impression upon the Japanese. It 
 embraced, as a matter of fact, the whole national 
 aspiration for expansion and prosperity. 
 
 Henry B. Miller, our Consul General at Yokohama, 
 in dissecting Japan's commercial anatomy under the 
 system of nationalization of commercial finances, rail- 
 ways, and steamships, said that the whole population 
 of fifty million people of Japan could be concentrated 
 by the Government behind any one industry or ac- 
 tivity. Japan, therefore, had the most formidable 
 tools for commercial conquest. She was further 
 fortified by European alliances, protective of special 
 rights, and these she was working to extend. 
 
 The circumstances warranted the fear by an awak- 
 ened American commerce of Japanese destructive com- 
 petition. The whole theory and belief of our Govern- 
 ment, regarding the development of East Asia, had 
 been that its benefits would descend upon all nations, 
 and that their interests would supplement each other. 
 This was the basis of the Open Door policy, and was 
 the belief upon which the acceptance of that principle 
 by the powers was supposed to have been based. And 
 
248 THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 so far, it was not Japanese competition that routed 
 American trade in China ; it was European monopoly. 
 The cost of production in Japan had been steadily 
 increasing. Coal, labor, commodities, and taxation 
 had advanced. The taste for luxuries was growing. 
 Japan's economic level had reached to about that of 
 Southern Europe, and was rising gradually to meet 
 that of Great Britain and America. The trade of 
 Japan with the countries of the Pacific would soon be 
 governed by the same stable laws of commercial 
 equality that prevailed in the Atlantic. 
 
 But this could not be, under conditions of inequality 
 such as the monopolizing of trade, and the benefits of 
 industrial developments through foreign loans to China 
 introduced by Europe, which Japan was certain to 
 meet, if not by capital, which she lacked, then by 
 diplomacy and arms. By the time we had signed 
 with China the Currency Loan, Japan showed that, 
 just as she had marshaled the powers in diplomacy 
 and formed the Manchurian alliance, she could dictate 
 the distribution of trade, to such a degree at least as 
 to shut out any nations that were not prepared to 
 meet the conditions of competition in China, both 
 economic and political. 
 
 Our commerce with China, little more than double 
 what it had been three quarters of a century before, 
 was relatively wiped out. By the time we achieved 
 our first loan successes, to safeguard our commerce, 
 the other capitalistic powers and Japan had almost 
 eliminated us from trade, as well as politics. The 
 process of getting rid of us had undermined our posi- 
 tion as the champions of the Open Door, and Japan, 
 who coveted our mantle, was not kept waiting and 
 did not often have to take the initiative. She had the 
 
DEFEAT IN THE PACIFIC 249 
 
 assistance of all our other rivals, and of the ignorance, 
 indifference, and often perfidy, of ourselves. From 
 the time American finance in China and Japan, in 
 the plans of Schiff and Harriman, collapsed in 1905, 
 and at the signing of the Currency Loan, 1910, Amer- 
 ican exports to China had fallen from fifty-eight million 
 six hundred thousand dollars to fifteen million five 
 hundred fifty thousand dollars. This represented, 
 in a powerful way, the depredations of foreign diplo- 
 macy and policy upon American interests in East 
 Asia. Cold commercial history showed that American 
 trade had been routed in China, the greatest potential 
 market in the world, and that America's vaunted ex- 
 pansion in the Pacific, which, with possession of the 
 Philippines and the building of the Panama Canal, it 
 was prophesied would become, with its circle of "nine 
 hundred milhon" people, "an American lake", did 
 not exist. 
 
 In 1913, when President Wilson took the stand 
 that we were not prepared to accept the conditions of 
 competition, Japan, as she had fallen heir to Russia's 
 position on the continent, became our legatee with 
 respect to the Open Door policy, and the leader 
 of the powers in the Pacific, and we began "to play 
 an effaced role in the Pacific, unworthy of our great 
 country." Our merchant marine long ago had been 
 swept away, and out of an unrecorded number of 
 American vessels in the trade of East Asia in the past, 
 of which ninety-six arrived at Shanghai alone in one 
 year, only six successors on regular service survived 
 the Open Door decade. It was perfectly understood 
 that if American enterprise was defeated across the 
 Pacific, it would be the second oversea failure since 
 the loss of the whaling and sealing industry, and after 
 
^50 THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 our Government's awakening, if American intervention 
 through finance and industry in China were defeated, 
 it would be the third, and then the nation might begin 
 to understand what the Hmitation of its destiny and 
 the influence of its institutions was to be, not only in 
 the Pacific and East Asia, but what it was to mean to 
 the world. 
 
 And it was defeated ! 
 
 Not only were our trading-barge merchant fleets of 
 the Pacific, our whaling and sealing fleets, and clipper- 
 carrier fleets gone, long ago, but financial and industrial 
 measures first to improve, then to retain, and last to 
 reclaim, were now lost. Yet that was not all. While 
 waned our chances of trade recovery, we lost the trade 
 and commerce. 
 
 The progress of the World War promised to reveal 
 with humiliating conviction, to the most secluded and 
 indifferent, by spectacles of incalculable military 
 brutalities, the limitations of our national influence 
 and destiny. International law was wrecked, our 
 treaties defied, our vessels sunk, and our citizens 
 murdered. But as if this prospect of destruction of 
 stll chance of meeting either a sudden or late reckoning 
 in the Pacific were not enough, the Government pro- 
 ceeded to sacrifice the ships that kept alive that 
 trade and commerce and international intercourse. It 
 neither paused nor looked about in its debacle. The 
 sailing barges with which we had conquered the com- 
 merce of the Pacific and the world had been succeeded 
 by steamships, and the struggle of the steamships 
 began with the passing of the sail. That also is a tale 
 of Japan which events now for the first time permit 
 to be told. 
 
 The steamships of the Pacific Mail Steamship Com- 
 
DEFEAT IN THE PACIFIC 251 
 
 pany were the first on the American-Asian trail. 
 Born in 1847, "to build a great mail steamship route 
 between New York and Hongkong, via the Isthmus of 
 Panama and San Francisco, with branch line between 
 China and Japan, and a coast line from Panama to 
 Oregon", came the Pacific Mail. 
 
 Organized in 1848 : All that is California, Arizona, 
 Nevada, Utah, New Mexico, and more, had become 
 ours, and we had to get to it, and to Oregon Territory, 
 which we had before. Three steamers were launched 
 and, headed by the California, worked their way to 
 the Pacific in time to find at Panama throngs of gold 
 seekers, who had mule-backed across the Isthmus, 
 bound for San Francisco Bay, and took them — 
 many, as it were, hanging to the rigging. 
 
 William H. Aspinwall was the genius of this. Profits 
 estimated at four hundred thousand dollars, with the 
 gold rush, "ran into millions of gross receipts per 
 annum." And so the story went. Outgrown ships 
 were sold and replaced ; in 1860 the company was re- 
 organized; in 1865, it enlarged its capital stock from 
 four to ten millions, and then was so inspired by the 
 vast prospects in the Pacific as to increase its stock to 
 twenty millions. 
 
 Lo, we came by Alaska, and had more Pacific Ocean 
 coast line than any people whatsoever. As showing 
 what we declined from, there came to the Pacific Mail 
 Steamship Company our Government's contract and 
 five hundred thousand dollars annual subsidy for a 
 mail service between San Francisco and Hongkong, 
 via Hawaii. As interpreted, the thoughts of the pro- 
 moters were fixed on "a large field for their own enter- 
 prise." The vast empire of East Asia and the Islands 
 of Japan, about five thousand miles from their Pacific 
 
252 THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 terminus, — the already known resources of which 
 represented, together, the industry of nearly five hun- 
 dred million people, — all "pointed to this grand field 
 as the proper and legitimate one in which to throw 
 their surplus energies." 
 
 So with surplus energies and surplus moneys they 
 built ships costing about one million dollars each, of 
 wood, with side wheels and walking beam engines. 
 One was called The Golden Age, in token of the Cali- 
 fornia era. It was the golden age of lithography, and 
 their owners ordered, large as wont, prints then beau- 
 tiful and now old and unsurpassed, showing these 
 merchant leviathans in the Golden Gate named by 
 Fremont, under Fuji, sung by ten thousand Japanese 
 poets, and beneath Hongkong's Peak, hailed by all 
 the sailors of the world. In 1867, when the company's 
 property was valued at thirty million dollars, it went 
 overseas to Asia. It had the fine Colorado, Great 
 Republic, Celestial Empire, America, and Japan — 
 3628 to 4100 tons register. While on the coast in 
 East Asia it had the Costa Rica, 1917 tons, with others 
 to follow. 
 
 The names of the organizers had disappeared from 
 the management of the company, and it was a new 
 and grander enterprise. Its agents in the new trans- 
 Pacific world were : Oliver Eldridge at San Francisco, 
 James H. Phinney at Yokohama, Russell and Company 
 at Shanghai, and S. Ledyard Phelps at Hongkong. 
 It entered a region of wonder and romance, and many 
 are the names and doings connected with it that, in 
 the iconoclasm of the hour, give us pause. 
 
 Following the example of Captain Robert Gray, who 
 left the Revolutionary Navy to take the Columbia and 
 discover the Columbia River, Captain Alfred G. Gray, 
 
DEFEAT IN THE PACIFIC 253 
 
 of the Navy, entered this first steamship service in the 
 Pacific. The America was the first to cross — autumn 
 of 1867, It carried general cargo and merchant, 
 missionary, and official passengers, inaugurating the 
 romance of "Pacific Mail" trade and travel. Now 
 that nothing remains of its hopes in trans-Pacific 
 annals but the name, the incidents of its existence 
 have become important in Pacific history. Rises up 
 the name of the dramatic, picturesque, and immortal 
 Anson Burlingame, leaving China on the world mission 
 for Emperor Tao Kuang. Ex-Secretary of State 
 Seward moves in the opposite direction to Japan, 
 China, and beyond, on his tour of the world. Again 
 from the west comes the famous Iwakura Mission, 
 then General Saigo Yorimichi, commissioner to the 
 Centennial Exposition at Philadelphia, where the first 
 display of Japanese art made the lasting impression 
 felt in this country. Comes the first Chinese Embassy 
 to the United States, and then General Grant, home- 
 bound from his tour of the world. 
 
 The opening of relations with China, Japan, Siam, 
 and Korea, with the names of notables connected with 
 those events and others in world history, are associated 
 with the name of the Pacific Mail. They include the 
 greater number of the American missionaries, educa- 
 tors, and advisers, who contributed to bringing Eastern 
 countries into the modern world. Many of the Japa- 
 nese, Chinese, and Siamese students, who created 
 modern Siam and Japan and New China, found their 
 way to America by these ships. 
 
 The Alaska and the China were added to the fleet, 
 whose steamers, after leaving San Francisco, proceeded 
 directly from Yokohama to Hongkong, via Van Die- 
 men's Straits, returning by the same route. The 
 
254 THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 South American service was extended down the west 
 coast. The New York, Golden Age, Oregon, Ariel, and 
 Nevada became a part of the service on the coast of 
 Asia. Connecting at Yokohama with the trans-Pacific 
 steamers, when the latter were not too long overdue, 
 they took mails, passengers, and cargo to way-ports, 
 returning with passengers, mails, silk, tea, etc., to 
 Yokohama. 
 
 This was the building up. The erosion of the fleet 
 was heralded by the loss in the beginning off Katsuma, 
 Awa, with sixty lives, of one of the first ships, under 
 Captain Newell. Then all went well until 1872, when 
 the Ariel was lost near Kiukazan, Sendai. Also the 
 Japanese began to awaken to the importance of mer- 
 chant marine. The Iwasaki family, with the Mitsu- 
 Bishi Company, having taken over the native craft 
 and several small steamers from the Daimyo of Tosa, 
 started a line in opposition to the Japanese Govern- 
 ment's Osaka- Yokohama line, employing foreign cap- 
 tains and engineers of a better class than those em- 
 ployed by the Government. By 1873 they had taken 
 over the government line, and reached the problem 
 of the Pacific Mail Steamship Company's coast line. 
 Coincidentally another steamer of this line, commanded 
 by Captain Corning, was lost on the Japan coast. 
 Then began the history in the company's affairs that 
 is characteristic of all our overseas enterprises in the 
 Pacific. 
 
 Okuma, later Premier of Japan, was the financial 
 factor of the Iwasakis. In 1875, he challenged the 
 Pacific Mail Steamship Company to sell its five 
 steamers on the East Asian coast, including the cargo 
 hulks. Rose at Kobe and ShamrocJc at Nagasaki, the 
 mooring buoy at Kobe, and the godowns, oflSce, and 
 
DEFEAT IN THE PACIFIC 255 
 
 pontoon at Shanghai, offering seven hundred and fifty 
 thousand dollars. Through its agent at Yokohama, 
 Henry Hart, the offer was refused, whereupon the 
 Iwasakis at once bought three ships from the English 
 Peninsular and Oriental Steamship Company, and 
 started a vigorous opposition, running down freight 
 and passenger rates until the Pacific Mail receipts had 
 fallen off sixty thousand dollars per month. In 1877, 
 when the Satsuma Rebellion broke out, an opportu- 
 nity came for both sides to reconsider the proposal, 
 and the Pacific Mail Company parted with the identical 
 five steamers to the Mitsu-Bishi Company. From 
 that time, especially with the great increase of trade 
 with America, Japan kept her eyes upon the Pacific 
 Mail Steamship line. But she never expected it to 
 fall into her hands without so much as the asking. 
 
 The struggle of American steamships had been taken 
 up in other regions of the Pacific. The extension of 
 the Pacific Mail Steamship service to Asia was followed 
 by an American steamship service across the South 
 Pacific. 
 
 In 1870 the first San Francisco-Sydney service was 
 run, beginning nearly forty years of struggle for an 
 American-Australian Steamship line. H. H. Hall, 
 the American consul at Sydney, undertook a tempo- 
 rary monthly service for the New South Wales and 
 New Zealand governments. The American Steam 
 Navigation Company furnished the two steamers, 
 Rangatira, and Balclutha, soon replaced by the City 
 of Melbourne and Wonga Wonga. 
 
 In 1871, Hall's line was superseded by a fleet of 
 four paddle steamers put on by the firm of Webb and 
 Holladay. The Nevada, Nebraska, Dacotah, and Moses 
 Taylor, 1354 tons to 2145 tons net, were the vessels 
 
256 THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 employed. On April 8, 1871, the Nehrasha opened 
 the service by sailing from San Francisco. The 
 Nevada followed, then the Dacotah, which reached 
 Australia in 1873. 
 
 There were no faster steam vessels in the Pacific. 
 The Nebraska was rated the best of the fleet, and 
 had a steaming record of twenty-six days and nine- 
 teen hours from San Francisco to Sydney. But the 
 curse of the latter-day Pacific hung over them. The 
 Nebraska and the Nevada affected a kind of military 
 air. "Leaving port, they fired guns, and when they 
 signaled for the pilot, were it early dawn or after dark, 
 they demanded quick dispatch." "They allowed no 
 one to forget that they were the Mail." It was said 
 that once, when the captain of the Nevada was making 
 up time, he overhauled the bark A. H. Badger. As he 
 passed her, his port paddle-box struck the sailing 
 ship with sufficient force to damage the paddle-box 
 and break some of the paddle floats. "Arriving at 
 Sydney, the captain 'guessed he grazed something' 
 on the way across." When the captain of the bark, 
 with his wife and child and the ship's company, reached 
 Sydney, it was learned that the accident to the bark 
 had caused it to founder the following day in a gale, 
 and the Australians expressed their indignation at 
 every visit of the Nevada thereafter. Some of the pas- 
 sengers sent a protest to Washington when the Ship 
 Subsidy Bill was before Congress, causing the with- 
 drawal of the company's subsidy. In disfavor through- 
 out the Pacific, the line ceased operation in April, 1873, 
 with the sailing of the Nebraska from Sydney. 
 
 Mr. Hall, our enterprising consul, was not dismayed. 
 In partnership with P. S. Forbes, he then undertook a 
 service with an Australian and New Zealand joint 
 
DEFEAT IN THE PACIFIC 257 
 
 subsidy, employing the steamers Mongol and Tartar, 
 two thousand tons register, chartered from the New 
 York, London, and China Steamship Company, the 
 steamer McGregor, which reached New Zealand, Sep- 
 tember, 1874, and the Grenada, which made the con- 
 nection for these steamers between Honolulu and San 
 Francisco, though occasionally visiting Australasia. 
 At the end of the year the Cyphrenes and the Mikado 
 replaced the first two, and later the American Steam 
 Navigation Company's City of Melbourne, with new 
 compound engines, made a few trips between San 
 Francisco and Sydney, in one of which she steamed 
 the distance in twenty-six days. But after incurring 
 a penalty of ten thousand pounds for a breach of 
 contract in failure to maintain schedule, the line 
 terminated. 
 
 Australia and New Zealand then accepted an offer 
 by the Pacific Mail Steamship Company, as against 
 the offer of the North German Lloyd Company, to 
 run twenty-five hundred ton steamers on the San 
 Francisco line. In conjunction with the Fairfield 
 Shipbuilding Company of Glasgow, the steamers 
 Zealandia and Australia, built by the latter, and the 
 Vasco da Gama, Colima, City of San Francisco, City of 
 New York, and City of Sydney entered into the service, 
 which was inaugurated November 10, 1875, by the 
 dispatch of the Colima from San Francisco. This was 
 one of the fastest ships owned by the Pacific Mail 
 Company, but with the Vasco da Gama was withdrawn 
 soon after, troubled with broken crank-shafts, cracked 
 piston-heads, and other engine misfortunes. 
 
 In 1885, the Pacific Mail Steamship Company's last 
 contract expired for the Australasian service, and it 
 withdrew to its original trans-Pacific undertaking. 
 
258 THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 The Oceanic Steamship Company of America, incor- 
 porated 1881, the outgrowth of a hne of small schooners 
 and brigs operated by the J. D. Spreckles and Brothers 
 Company between Hawaii and San Francisco, with the 
 Union Steamship Company of New Zealand, succeeded 
 in the Australian service. The latter put on the 
 Alameda and Mariposa, 3158 tons gross measure- 
 ment, and the Mariposa left San Francisco on Novem- 
 ber 21, 1885. 
 
 J. D. Spreckles was virtually the Oceanic Company. 
 Though entitled by contract to run but two of the 
 three vessels on the American-Australian line, after 
 one or two runs by the Union Company's vessel, whose 
 accommodations were not equal to the service required, 
 he provided all three, resuming the two-vessel service 
 in 1890. 
 
 On November 21, 1900, the Oceanic Steamship Com- 
 pany inaugurated a new service with the sailing of the 
 Sierra from San Francisco to Sydney, followed by the 
 Sonoma and Ventura, newly built at Cramp's ship- 
 building yards, Philadelphia. Under a contract with 
 our Government for the carriage of mails, it com- 
 menced a three-weekly service between San Francisco, 
 Hawaii, Pago Pago, Tutuila, and Sydney. The Ala- 
 meda was placed on the local run between San Francisco 
 and Honolulu, and the Mariposa was converted into 
 an oil burner, and was placed on the run between 
 San Francisco and Tahiti, under a contract with the 
 two governments concerned. 
 
 In January, 1903, the two million five hundred 
 thousand dollar capital stock of the Oceanic Steam- 
 ship Company was doubled in anticipation of new 
 opportunities. But in 1906, owing to the earthquake 
 and fire which partly destroyed San Francisco, and 
 
DEFEAT IN THE PACIFIC 259 
 
 the consequent disruption of business, the Sierra, 
 Sonoma, and Ventura were laid up. Meantime the 
 Alameda was continued in the San Francisco-Honolulu 
 service until the Sierra had been converted into an 
 oil burner, when she was sold, and the Sierra took up 
 the local run to Honolulu. 
 
 British competition caused the withdrawal of the 
 Tahiti, and the Mariposa was sold. And the end 
 seemed appreciably near, when all vessels were con- 
 verted into more economic "oil burners", and in 
 1912, under a new government contract, a twenty- 
 eight-day service between San Francisco and Sydney, 
 via Hawaii and Tutuila, was established. In 1915, 
 the World War had stayed the Pacific curse in respect 
 to this line, and with increased traffic with British 
 colonies, the Sierra was restored to the Australian 
 run, with the Sonoma and Ventura, with the common 
 fate awaiting it at the war's end. 
 
 In 1898, the Government established its transport 
 service between San Francisco and Manila. In 1902, 
 the Northern Pacific Railway and the Boston Steam- 
 ship Company made steamship connection from Oregon 
 and Washington with Japan and China. In 1905, 
 two ships, the Minnesota and Dakota, twenty-eight 
 thousand tons each, and the largest in the Pacific, 
 were launched by the Great Northern Railway Com- 
 pany. And this year an Alaska-Siberia service was 
 established, and Robert Dollar was building up a 
 trans-Pacific freight service of four ships. 
 
 American ships, up to the beginning of the Shanghai 
 period, averaged about three hundred tons register 
 each. One hundred of them, such as visited East 
 Asia at that period, therefore aggregated in tonnage 
 only thirty thousand. At the same time, at the be- 
 
260 THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 ginning of 1905, the total tonnage of American steam- 
 ships in regular trans-Pacific commerce, was only 
 23,426. In that year, however, when the Great 
 Northern Railway Company launched two vessels to 
 connect Oregon and Washington with East Asia, the 
 Pacific Mail Steamship Company added three vessels 
 of nearly twenty-four thousand tons each, and the 
 tonnage of American trans-Pacific ships rose to 149,685 ! 
 
 It was a "lightning before death." 
 
 Our ships were not only the means that had created 
 and safeguarded our foreign commerce and trade, as 
 history showed, but they contributed to the defense 
 of the nation. Their sinews not only were the bul- 
 wark of foreign trade but were a part of our naval 
 force and of land military force when employed abroad. 
 In the Pacific they had given us all of the material 
 assets we could claim in a long contest for reciprocal 
 advantages in East Asia. And we needed them now 
 more than ever before, because our contest was to be 
 with Asiatic competition. 
 
 The Chinese and Japanese, — the two great nations 
 of one civilization, to whom our steamships came as a 
 friendly overture, — expressed its significance to them 
 in striking contrast. When the Pacific Mail ships 
 reached Hongkong, the Kwangtung Chinese there 
 discovered that the wooden hulls were sheathed with 
 copper. In 1868, while one of the steamers lay at 
 her dock, the sampan men stripped the copper off one 
 entire side, "and not a soul on board heard even a 
 suspicious noise." 
 
 Not so to the Japanese. The most interesting and 
 valuable picture of a Pacific Mail steamship is Japa- 
 nese. Not so much because of its art, as because of 
 its moral significance and associations. A large draw- 
 
DEFEAT IN THE PACIFIC 261 
 
 ing, made on wooden boards by an unknown Japanese 
 artist, it was hung by a priest in a temple beside the 
 Inland Sea, and for forty years remained there, a sacred 
 object to worshipers who followed the sea, and until 
 the owners of the temple were persuaded to part with 
 it, and it was carried to San Francisco. 
 
 The subsequent history of these two peoples respect- 
 ing steamships was reflected in these incidents. China 
 never moved successfully. Although in China there 
 is one so-called Chinese steamer service, it has never 
 been efficient or profitable. On the other hand, in 
 Japan, the arrival of our steamships, made an event 
 of religious significance in a temple beside the Inland 
 Sea, was followed by the move of the Iwasaki family. 
 And from it developed the policy that put Japan in 
 the position to displace all our trans-Pacific steamship 
 service, and to veritably "capture the trade of the 
 Pacific." 
 
 "Winding up business in this part of the world," 
 as was said of our defeat in the steamship service, 
 traces its initiative from the beginning of the steam 
 era. Of the first trans-Pacific steamers, the America 
 was burnt in Yokohama Harbor, the Japan burnt 
 off the coast of China between Amoy and Hongkong, 
 while the Great Republic was lost on the Columbia 
 River Bar. The others were broken up. 
 
 A new type, the screw-driven steamers, which we 
 had learned to build, took their places. But the coast 
 service in Asia was not resumed. Although the Pacific 
 Mail became a great international steamship line, 
 identified with the meeting of the two great civiliza- 
 tions across the world's greatest ocean, its dreams of 
 expansion in the Pacific had not materialized. It was 
 a great factor when it entered the trade and travel 
 
262 THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 that populated California, and to an extent, Oregon 
 and Hawaii, and again when it crossed the Pacific. 
 It was the first steamer line across the Pacific. Yoko- 
 hama owes its early prosperity and its place as a great 
 port to the Pacific Mail Steamship Company. But 
 glory could not save it. It lost money sometimes, 
 and suspended dividends, sometimes made a few 
 hundreds of dollars, and even at times a few tens of 
 thousands. But it never realized what the original 
 promoters of the service to California realized, and 
 in 1893 it was practically defunct. 
 
 Former American success on the deep seas was won 
 in an age of chance, by daring and self-denial, when 
 there were still unknown and unfrequented seas, un- 
 discovered wealth, and secret marts of barter and 
 shipping. But these were no more. The present was 
 an age of science in trade, as well as in other things. 
 There was no undiscovered country, in a physical 
 sense, and chance had been essentially outlawed. 
 Therefore science must be employed. 
 
 Then CoUis P. Huntington employed Lieutenant 
 R. P. Schwerin to again build up the Pacific Mail. 
 And, still without subsidies such as were enjoyed by 
 all its competitors, it was resuscitated and reorganized 
 into a worthy competitor of foreign shipping, equipped 
 with the largest vessels on the Pacific, excepting two 
 which belonged to the Great Northern Railway. 
 
 In 1901 came American opportunity to imitate 
 American shipping achievements in the Pacific in the 
 past. Commerce improved on account of the occupa- 
 tion of China by foreign troops, and the opportunities 
 of trade expansion which followed. The Hill and 
 Harriman railroads warred for ports on the Pacific in 
 Washington and Oregon from whence to re-tap Asia, 
 
DEFEAT IN THE PACIFIC 263 
 
 and several movements were started. One of these 
 was the movement for revival of our merchant marine 
 by subsidies and reformed shipping laws, permitting 
 foreign-built ships to sail under the American flag; 
 another, the special study of world economy by consuls 
 and special officers ; another, reform and extension 
 abroad of communications — banking, telegraphs, and 
 mails ; another, the modification of the tariff — the 
 Chinese Great Wall, shutting out trade expansion; 
 and still another, the formidable increase of our navy 
 and army — all for the extension to foreign regions, 
 notably Pacific regions, of our commerce, and a proper 
 influence and respect for our rights and institutions. 
 
 When the Northern Pacific Steamship Company 
 started a trans-Pacific trade from Seattle, Harriman 
 added to the Pacific Mail fleet the three new vessels, 
 of nearly twenty -four thousand tons each, already 
 mentioned. But nothing further was achieved, and 
 we were again reminded that we could not do with 
 steam at sea what we had done with sail; that no 
 American trans-Pacific trade ever equaled in relative 
 importance the "clipper trade", mainly via the Cape 
 of Good Hope, 1843-1857 ; that the attempt to revive 
 it across the Pacific, which had exercised a fascinating 
 influence over American imagination, is the toughest 
 problem of American commerce; and that men of 
 the present, including the law makers, show themselves 
 unequal to conditions. It has remained the great 
 industrial question of the United States — the problem, 
 the goal, and the quondam prize of railway builders, 
 manufacturers, financiers, and merchants. 
 
 As long as the problem of scientific pursuit of foreign 
 trade, and special study of national foreign interests, 
 was not mastered, all attempts were vain. Our mer- 
 
264 THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 chant marine and carrying trade continued to decline 
 toward the vanishing point. James J. Hill confessed 
 failure. One of his fine vessels, the Dakota, became "a 
 wreck on a Japanese reef." Failure in the Pacific, 
 which once gave such great wealth to our traders, was 
 the testimony of all, from Aspinwall to Huntington 
 and the Goulds, and finally to R. S. Lovett, who suc- 
 ceeded Huntington and Harriman in the Southern 
 Pacific Railway. 
 
 These confessions of failure in the Pacific had one 
 notable exception. The discouraging career of the 
 Pacific Mail Line and the Northern Pacific Steamship 
 Line did not deter, but on the contrary, inspired 
 Edward H. Harriman. Where others merely sought 
 to tap the Asiatic seaboard from our Pacific coast, he 
 conceived the idea of himself building the Panama 
 Canal, as a patriotic duty, so as to turn Atlantic ships 
 across the Pacific. When that became a government 
 enterprise, he worked out and, as I have shown, partly 
 executed a plan for a steamer and train circuit of the 
 globe, traversing entirely the north temperate zone. 
 
 Not even the New England navigators and traders 
 surpassed Harriman in sheer daring. He wished to 
 join the Pacific with the Atlantic by an Asian rail 
 route with ship connections with New England, a 
 project as romantic to the imagination as Jonathan 
 Carver's Pacific waterway through the North American 
 continent, and yet capable of realization. 
 
 When he had done this, and after Japan had can- 
 celed her undertakings in the matter, Japan came 
 forward with an offer to buy the Pacific Mail Steamship 
 Company. 
 
 As the principal owner of the Southern Pacific Rail- 
 road Company, Harriman had the disposal of the 
 
DEFEAT IN THE PACIFIC 265 
 
 ships m his hands. He declined the Japanese offer. 
 He said he owed a duty to his stockholders, because he 
 could dispose of the ships at a profit. But his patriotic 
 duty obliged him to retain the flag upon the Pacific. 
 
 The plans of Harriman were an attempt to realize 
 the national dream of a hundred and twenty years. 
 Had he lived, there is no doubt the story of our mer- 
 chant marine would have been different. While he 
 was still developing his plan, the conditions of com- 
 petition became more exacting. Our lines received 
 no subsidies of any kind and had to compete with 
 foreign lines, principally Japanese, subsidized in the 
 Pacific to the extent of two million four hundred and 
 one thousand dollars per annum. 
 
 In 1912, the Pacific Mail made an effort to revive 
 from the blow it had received in the death of Harri- 
 man, putting on an intermediate service with ships 
 chartered in the Atlantic. Then came the loss of one 
 of these, the Asia, in the track of the old side-wheeler, 
 Japan. It ran ashore and was looted clean by Fukien 
 pirates. And finally, in 1914, Congress passed, and 
 President Wilson signed, the "Seamen's Act" requiring 
 "seventy -five per cent, of the crews on American ships 
 in all departments to understand any order given by 
 their officers in the native language of the officers", 
 which made it impossible any longer to employ Asiatic 
 crews on American ships in the Pacific, and thereby 
 unprofitable to run the ships competing especially 
 with the Japanese. Although the Pacific Mail shipped 
 instructors after the passage of the Act, the Asiatic 
 crews could not learn English. 
 
 The Government, which had never reimbursed 
 Harriman for patriotically saving Imperial Valley 
 from inundation by the Colorado River in 1906, at 
 
266 THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 a cost of three million dollars, now at a blow destroyed 
 the great steamship service which he had patriotically- 
 retained on the Pacific. 
 
 The Pacific Mail could do nothing but dissolve, and 
 after hawking its ships in Wall Street for several weeks, 
 sold out at a heavy discount. In August, 1915, eight 
 of the vessels, including the Manchuria, Mongolia, 
 Korea, Siberia, and China, went to the International 
 Mercantile Marine at New York and the Toyo Kisen 
 Kaisha of Japan. On September 29, Honolulu fes- 
 tooned the Manchuria with a wreath inscribed "Aloha 
 Pacific Mail ", and the Pacific bade the Pacific Mail 
 adieu. 
 
 On October 6, the last steamer of the first trans- 
 Pacific steamer service was in home dock in San 
 Francisco Bay with good-bys like burial wreaths. 
 October 10 saw all trans-Pacific offices of the company 
 closed. With their names and the flag in giant World 
 War design, half a ship's length, painted on the ships' 
 sides, they left for the Atlantic. On October 15, at a 
 meeting of the stockholders, the capital stock was 
 dissipated, and in trans-Pacific shipping the company 
 became a name only. The Northern Pacific withdrew 
 its vessel, the Minnesota, and the Robert Dollar Com- 
 pany sought the transference of its vessels to Van- 
 couver to supplement the service of the British and 
 the depleted Canadian trans-Pacific fleet. 
 
 The Oceanic Steamship Company, with three minor 
 vessels, and having no Asiatic competition, was the 
 only American deep-sea line in the Pacific. The total 
 of American steam tonnage in all services there was 
 reduced to 20,838, less than that of the American- 
 Asian service alone in 1905. 
 
 Our exit from Asia was described thus by the Japa- 
 
DEFEAT IN THE PACIFIC 267 
 
 nese East and West News: "The Pacific Mail flag 
 which floated over Number 4 Water Street, Yokohama, 
 for many years, was recently displaced by the house 
 flag of the Toyo Kisen Kaisha, which company has 
 now taken possession of the premises. Those present 
 at the ceremony, says the [Kobe] Chronicle, were Mr. 
 Campbell, local agent of the Pacific Mail Company, 
 and his staff, a representative of the T. K. K. and 
 Mr. G. H. Scidmore, United States Consul-General. 
 The Japari Gazette says that Mr. Campbell, in handing 
 over the lease of the property and hauling down the 
 flag, wished the T. K. K. every success in its new home. 
 Mr. Campbell has offices on the premises which he 
 will occupy until the business of the Pacific Mail Co. 
 is wound up — the last rites of American shipping on 
 the Pacific Ocean !" 
 
 American whalers, traders, and steam mariners in 
 turn peacefully captured the Pacific as it never had 
 been captured, but none were able to stay. The 
 whalers were conquered by destruction in the Civil 
 War, through government neglect and failure in its 
 responsibilities, and changes in the industry. The 
 early traders of our own and all other countries were 
 conquered by our clippers. Our clippers there were 
 conquered by our steamers, and in steam traffic we 
 have been weaker than in anything that preceded it. 
 
 What Harriman refused to do alone, others did 
 jointly. On March 18, 1913, when President Wilson 
 withdrew government support from the financing of 
 trade in China, we were back to 1844, to the Canton 
 Period, in East Asia. On November 4, 1915, when 
 the "Seamen's Act" went into effect, we were again 
 back to 1784, with all our future merchant marine 
 and trade to make. With the signature of the Presl- 
 
THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 dent, American competition in the Pacific trade was 
 removed, and we "lowered our flag to Japan." Before 
 the rise of the Japanese mercantile marine, our trans- 
 Pacific shipping disappeared. Japan, which had fifteen 
 ships in Pacific trade in 1914, in 1915 had forty-five, 
 and was rapidly building. Creasy's prophecy was 
 again disproved. Our national dream was realized 
 by an Asiatic power. "Intentionally or not," said 
 Asano, President of the Toyo Kisen Kaisha, "the 
 Pacific trade is the gift of the United States to Japan 
 through the passage of your new Seamen's Bill." 
 
 Attracted by war traffic and war freight rates 
 created since the Seaman's Act came into force, the 
 Pacific Mail, under new owners, in June, 1916, bought 
 the Dutch ship Ecuador, converted it into an oil 
 burner in emulation of the measures of economy 
 originated in the Pacific by the Oceanic Steamship 
 Company, to meet Asiatic competition, and with two 
 other former Dutch ships, crept back, temporarily, 
 to the Pacific and began sailings in August. As they 
 did so, they announced that "during the existence of 
 the present abnormal freight rates these ships could 
 be profitably operated", after which the future of 
 "the only trans-Pacific line operating under the 
 American flag" would "depend upon the action of 
 the Federal authorities. It became impossible," it 
 said, "for American capital to operate ships on the 
 Pacific Ocean under the American flag in normal 
 times. If the Seaman's Bill is left unmodified, and 
 the Alexander Shipping Bill [for a government-owned 
 merchant marine] should become a law without ma- 
 terial modification, then this condition of affairs will 
 again prevail in normal times." 
 
 In the six months preceding this action, Japan's 
 
DEFEAT IN THE PACIFIC 269 
 
 ocean trade with South America, where the service 
 of the Pacific Mail had been maintained longest, with 
 additional Japanese ships sent to that region, increased 
 in the ratio of one hundred and forty per cent., while 
 the exports for the empire under conditions of the 
 Japanese shipping conquest in the Pacific had in- 
 creased fifty-six per cent., and steel for other ships 
 was leaving our ports for Japanese shipyards. 
 
CHAPTER XVI 
 
 Recession 
 
 Still, even defeat in diplomacy and trade by Japan 
 and the "special rights" allies was not enough. There 
 must be a complete renunciation in East Asia and the 
 Western Pacific, and so the Government attempted to 
 compel a scut tli ng of the Philippines by a measure in 
 Congress to bring the flag back nearly five thousand 
 miles in 19^20 to Hawaii, lea^Tug us with the isolated 
 coaling station of Guam in the Western Pacific. There 
 was no justification in statesmanship, reason, or 
 humanity for this, except that by our good intentions 
 and ineptitude we had become offensive to Japan 
 and were intimidated by her. 
 
 Japan had attacked our right of tenure there and 
 threatened our neighbors ia that region. And in 
 May, 191*2, after China had asked us for the Currency 
 Loan, and the interests of all the powers in it were 
 arranged, certain Japanese opioion in elucidation of 
 Japan's pohcy was expressed by the Osaka Asahi 
 Shimbuji, as f oUows : 
 
 "The United States, having no territorial concessions 
 and no geographical facilities, has assumed the poHtical 
 and financial guidance of China. She has offered to 
 furnish the capital for the exploitation of Liaotung — 
 ia return for rights. She has organised a loan syndicate 
 of English, German, French, and American bankers, 
 
 270 
 
RECESSION 271 
 
 and assumed $50,000,000 of the total amount. By 
 bold and skiKul diplomacy she has out-maneuvered 
 Japan, Russia, and England, whose rights and interests 
 are predominant, and forced them to take a back seat. 
 In the Revolution, when the Japanese and English 
 diplomatists were so circumspect as to incur the an- 
 noyance of the Chinese, the United States, by clever 
 diplomacy, kept on the best of terms with the North 
 and the South. When the Emperor abdicated, the 
 United States was sympathetic. Then when the 
 Republic was declared, it was America who came for- 
 ward with the proposal that the Powers should help 
 the new RepubHc to the restoration of order in China. 
 America, to our astonishment, has succeeded in con- 
 vincing China that it is she who is laboring to help her 
 in her distress. 
 
 • "The United States has vastly improved her position 
 in China, and under the RepubHc will succeed even 
 more, and it is probable that she will become China's 
 guide. The new Cabinet is pro-American. Yuan 
 [Shih-k'ai] once tried to form an American Alliance, 
 and it was to Tong [Shao-yi] he intrusted the work. 
 The Ministers of State are equally pro-American. 
 Hsiung Hsi-Kng, the jMinister of Finance, encouraged 
 American financiers to provide the funds for the de- 
 velopment of Manchuria, so as to checkmate the 
 aggression of Russia and Japan. He will turn to 
 America again now. The new officials are mostly of 
 American education. The forceful American represent- 
 ative, Mr. Calhoun, is strongly backed by the American 
 pressmen in Peking. The American missionary is ever 
 conveniently near, urging the Chinese on. The word 
 "RepubHc" is a charm at the present moment, and 
 its constant use makes the Chinese beHeve that the 
 
%1% THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 Americans are their only true friends. They forget 
 how their countrymen are despised, insulted, humili- 
 ated, and persecuted in America. They humbly 
 follow their guides. Japan is only separated from 
 China by a narrow strip of water. Our interests are 
 predominant there. Why don't the Japanese people 
 do something to arouse the officials from their slumber 
 to a realisation of the position .^^ " 
 
 Japan had served notice on us in East Asia, in 
 several unmistakable forms, to get out. That was the 
 message of her July 4, 1910, "predatory pact" with 
 Russia. It was the message of her handling of the 
 Conspiracy Case in Korea, when the courts were 
 dominated by the anti-missionary "Kulturists" of 
 Japan. It was the message of the second defeat of 
 the Six-Power Loan through the same Independence 
 Day pact, in which Japan had the support of both 
 Russia and Russia's ally, France. But it was still 
 more the pungent and ruthless message of Japan's 
 demands upon China : while in 1915, the highest 
 ranking and most important Japanese official in the 
 United States, but one, said plainly to us these words : 
 *'We two nations can have peace if you will stay out 
 of East Asia." 
 
 Europe in East Asia had always regarded us as 
 "impossible, but unavoidable." Japan determined us 
 to be not only impossible but avoidable. She wasted 
 no words in summoning us to get out of East Asia. 
 And we have let no grass grow under our feet in doing 
 so. The public, secret, and unseemly haste of Japan, 
 shown especially since August 1, 1914, when the 
 World War set in, has received more of its impetus 
 from the conduct of our case than from any other 
 source. 
 
RECESSION 273 
 
 If Japan did nothing more she laid down the lines 
 and conditions on which peace cannot exist in the 
 Pacific. The United States is arming, forced to do so 
 by the condition of the world, and one cannot but ask 
 whether the flight of its diplomacy from the bugbear 
 of Pacific complications is not temporary only, destined 
 to be followed in time by a forcible defense of America's 
 humane and just contentions, and of Western civiliza- 
 tion, until the differences between East and West in 
 the Pacific area can have time to work themselves 
 out, at least with mutual sacrifices and mutual ad- 
 vantages, and with justice to international rights. 
 
 It will be seen from what I have said of Japanese 
 accusations and criticisms, in one instance made by 
 the Asahi Shimbun, when China had arranged with us 
 for the Currency Loan, and it had been modified by 
 the Manchurian allies out of all recognition so as to 
 suit their policies, that those accusations and criticisms 
 came after our virtual defeat at the hands of Japan 
 and Europe. And little remained of our position ex- 
 cept the few concessions and the policy and promise 
 for the future which received the damnation adminis- 
 tered by President Wilson. Japan's assertion of 
 paramount interests in China, of herself, and then 
 Russia and England, followed our diplomatic defeat. 
 At that time, the insults which, through Japan's great 
 diplomatic success, our envoy at Peking had to endure, 
 were so humiliating that he had to be persuaded from 
 resigning his post. 
 
 But these criticisms and accusations from Japan do 
 not deceive us into thinking that they originated solely 
 from a natural attempt on our part, by just and legit- 
 imate means, to obtain what Japan and Europe were 
 obtaining by the same means and otherwise. Our 
 
274 THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 enterprises of all kinds in the Western Pacific area 
 have been unwelcome to the Japanese. Such is the 
 outcome of our mission of one hundred and thirty 
 years to that region. And it strikes at the institu- 
 tions of America, at the spirit of the people, and at 
 Western civilization. It is the conflict of the two 
 civilizations. 
 
 The preceding chapters furnish a sufficient explana- 
 tion of our position in East Asia. That position is 
 based solely upon the doctrine of the Open Door. 
 Except in so far as the law of extraterritoriality has 
 fitted itself into international relations in China, our 
 principles are the same in China as those that govern 
 our relations with other nations. Except by Japan, 
 this has never been challenged as being less than a 
 faultless basis for our own or the presence of any 
 nation in East Asia. But as she has successfully 
 assailed us and nearly succeeded in driving us from 
 East Asia, there remains the implication that there 
 may have been some just reason for doing this. There- 
 fore a more complete explanation of our presence in 
 the Pacific and East Asia, especially with reference to 
 Japan, may be made. And this is very simple. For 
 what remains, after consideration of the contribution 
 from Western civilization in its trend westward across 
 the Pacific, to China and Japan, which we have made, 
 and the particulars which I have given to show 
 how we have crossed Japan's path in the past, is 
 the single question that was principally the cause 
 of Japan's raising the bogey of Magdalena Bay, 
 namely, the acquisition of territory and military bases 
 in East Asia. 
 
 When this came up, our contribution to the pros- 
 perity of East Asia and to international commerce, 
 
RECESSION 275 
 
 in the Spice Islands, by the discovery and marketing 
 of pepper, the development of the fur trade across the 
 Pacific, the creation of Pacific whaling, and the clipper 
 ship achievement which brought East Asia two weeks 
 to a month nearer Europe, were forgotten. Japan 
 had fallen heir to the great whaling industry in the 
 North Pacific which we had built up, and to the carry- 
 ing trade, which was already within her grasp. The 
 annual American subsidy to her trade, of a quarter 
 of a million dollars of Pacific Coast gold, seemed to her 
 a right, when she raised the question of our presence 
 in a physical sense in China, and in the Philippines. 
 
 Our first land concession in China for a trading 
 settlement at Shanghai long ago passed into the 
 "international settlement", and while Europe and 
 Japan were building up territorial possessions in China, 
 was taken out of our control. One of our commis- 
 sioners to China had proposed that we join England 
 and France in temporary occupation of Formosa and 
 other places in order to coerce China into settling the 
 vexed question of the fulfillment of our treaties, but 
 it had never been more than a proposal. Commodore 
 Perry had our flag raised over a group of the Bonin 
 Islands where Nathaniel Savory, an American, and a 
 party of mixed nationals from Hawaii had settled, 
 as a possible Pacific station for our ships, to protect 
 the trade by which we then dominated the Pacific. 
 But although these islands did not belong to Japan, 
 Perry was the first, for Japan, to claim the right of 
 possession that lay in discovery, and thus he fore- 
 stalled the claims set up by the British. He put on 
 record the visit of a Japanese junk to that group in 
 the seventeenth century. 
 
 In 1898, we came into possession of the Philippines, 
 
276 THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 but they were not an Asiatic possession and had not 
 been acquired by conflict with any Asiatic power. 
 They came to us from Europe. In 1901, we gave up 
 our concession at Tientsin, and we had no base or 
 foothold of any kind, in territory, anywhere in Japan 
 or on the continent of Asia, or anywhere in East Asia 
 except in our own European-acquired possessions. 
 
 It was two years after that Roosevelt's "Pacific 
 Era" speech at San Francisco, promising for the United 
 States "the dominion of the Pacific", excited the 
 resentment of Japanese who later, when Japan emerged 
 from the war with Russia, declared in the words of 
 Baron Kaneko that Japan would not only resist that 
 dominion but take every means to control the Pacific 
 trade. Roosevelt said : "America's geographical posi- 
 tion on the Pacific is such as to ensure peaceful domina- 
 tion of its waters in the future, if we only grasp with 
 sufficient resolution the advantages of that position." 
 The "advantages of that position" were those belong- 
 ing to us on the eastern shore of the Pacific and in its 
 waters, and those conferred upon us and all other 
 nations alike on the western shores by the Open Door 
 doctrine. 
 
 The "domination of the Pacific" can be understood 
 from what we did, 1851-1856, when we were in pos- 
 session of its shipping, and used our control of the sea 
 to peacefully open Japan and carry the light of knowl- 
 edge to the famishing cubs of the Mikado, all of which 
 has been abundantly testified to by Japan, in the past, 
 and by other rulers, in Hawaii, China, Siam, Burma, 
 and other places in the Pacific, and by what we have 
 so far done for the Philippines. 
 
 Then Japan felt the whole world altered by her 
 victory over Russia in East Asia, and no longer toler- 
 
RECESSION 277 
 
 ated the powers, or the conditions, around her. And 
 there occurred something which set the ill feeling of 
 the Japanese in this direction aflame. A report from 
 our Navy recommended the acquisition of a coaling 
 station on the Chinese coast, below Shanghai, preferably 
 at Fuchou. It was in the same general latitude as the 
 Bonin Islands, and was in the region of other naval 
 stations on China's coast, notably of Japan, England, 
 and France. Although it was never more than a 
 proposal, unsupported by the Government, and was 
 something in which it would be necessary to interest 
 the people, and must be approved by the legislative 
 branch of the Government, before it could be carried 
 out, it created a real or feigned distrust at Tokio, 
 which no assurances of our Government have succeeded 
 in removing. On the contrary, it has been kept alive, 
 and the Japanese Government has made the most of 
 it in its campaign to oust us from East Asia. 
 
 Yet in this matter, Japan again revealed the selfish 
 basis of her action. The State Department, for our 
 Government, denied any purpose to seek such a con- 
 cession from China. But Japan would not believe it. 
 We then proposed, as a guarantee of good faith, to 
 sign with her an agreement in which both would 
 undertake not to seek such a concession from China. 
 Japan refused. 
 
 Our interpretation of a naval depot in East Asia, 
 such as was contemplated in the Bonin Islands plan, 
 was furnished by Townsend Harris in respect to our 
 treaty of 1857 with Japan, when he said of the treaty : 
 "By this I have secured the choice of three good har- 
 bors for our naval depot in the East, in a country 
 . . . where the men cannot desert, and with a power 
 sufficiently civilized to respect our rights, and above 
 
278 THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 all not a power with whom we might have a rupture, 
 like England." We never had had the least difficulty 
 with Japan over our naval station in her waters. For 
 nearly fifty years we had been no menace to her. But 
 of course, times were changed. 
 
 Our next naval base in the Pacific was Pearl Harbor, 
 the next Pago Pago, and then Manila Bay, while in 
 order to provide for our naval patrol maintained in 
 concert with all nations in the riverine and coast waters 
 of China, it was proper, as it had been in Japan, and 
 as was the custom and necessity of other powers in 
 China, to have a naval station convenient to the 
 southern coast, especially in the area of piracy and 
 revolutionary uprisings. The prejudice and injustice 
 of Japan's imputations are perfectly conclusive from 
 what she did, and did not do, when the matter came 
 up for determination, as I have shown. 
 
 On the other hand, Japan's position in the theater 
 of the Western Pacific, where we had already built 
 up a relatively important history, requires considera- 
 tion in a similar manner. As much foolishness has 
 been shouted into the public ear by our own wor- 
 shipers at the Sun-god's shrine, that subject needs a 
 rigorous cleansing process before it can receive a 
 health certificate. But I will advance only a few 
 facts from the Japanese, themselves. 
 
 Inazo Nitobe, perhaps to Americans the best known 
 of Japanese writers, shortens Japan's history from 
 twenty-seven to twenty centuries, clips off four or 
 five centuries more, and promises alterations from 
 future investigators. He makes Japan young, in 
 comparison with all of her neighbors, and places her, 
 in relation to Korea, China, and India, as Germany to 
 Egypt. 
 
RECESSION 279 
 
 Japan's two- thousand-year-old dynasty "by the 
 grace of Heaven" vanishes into a mere worshipful 
 belief. We find it has been a pernicious mistake to 
 have translated this fable, as history, into the languages 
 of Western nations, such as must deal in a practical 
 manner with the Asiatic problem in the Pacific. The 
 so-called Japanese divine imperial vehicle which is 
 credited with transmitting the "line" is a kind of 
 creche wherein many of the "emperors" were no more 
 related than the eggs of a modern incubator, and did 
 not even survive the brooder, much less transmit the 
 line. The entire line, in English, is what we call an 
 "Oriental" fraud. Nitobe says that "one babe was 
 crowned at the age of two, only to abdicate at the age 
 of four." Boys of five and ten occupied the "throne." 
 Adults were sent to monasteries and the "imperial" 
 power was traded around. The "emperor" was 
 "shelved" and royal power reduced "to the shadow 
 of a name." This was from the time the inhabitants 
 of the island of Nippon gave up nomad life and built 
 a capital. Royal power had no existence, — except in 
 successive dynasties of unrelated kings, — until after 
 Perry opened Japan. 
 
 In fact Japan's line of rulers passed from one family 
 to another, unrelated, hostile, like the Fujiwaras and 
 the Tairas. In the twelfth century, Yoritomo cap- 
 tured the government and ruled Japan from Kama- 
 kura. In the seventeenth century, the Tokugawas 
 stepped in. Nitobe compares these rulers to the 
 robber barons of the Rhine, or the manorial lords of 
 England, And they became the feudal lords or 
 daimyos who ruled Japan, and with whom we made 
 the opening treaties. 
 
 The making of Japan's rulers continuous is realized 
 
280 THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 by tlie same process by which the Western 'parvenu 
 traces his ancestry to Charlemagne, or Alexander. 
 Japan had no sciences of her own. She had no science 
 of history until within the period of our present-day 
 school children. As Nitobe indicates, Japanese his- 
 tory remains to be identified, created, established. 
 The royal power before 1868 was a house of cards, 
 blown down to-day by school children. 
 ' Japan's place in universal history is simple and brief. 
 It is true that after the third century, by the grace 
 of the Chinese, the inhabitants of the Japanese isles 
 were able to keep written records, and in the eighth 
 century some of them had a capital. Under the in- 
 fluence of refugees and immigrants from China, they 
 ventured upon the sea, and toward the end of the 
 Middle Ages some moved about East Asia, trading as 
 far as India. They left no place among nations for 
 themselves, and in 1637, lyeyasu, the first Tokugawa 
 ruler, in a mandate that was not canceled until after 
 Commodore Perry opened Japan, expelled foreigners 
 (Portuguese and Spaniards), abolished the Christianity 
 they had introduced, forbade Japanese to go or come 
 at sea, forbade the building of deep-sea ships, gave the 
 deathblow to all aspiration for foreign connections, 
 responsibilities, opportunities, and obligations, alike. 
 In consequence Japan, from being little and unaspiring, 
 and relatively unimportant, never had any foreign 
 relations, not even with China or Korea, and her ad- 
 ministration did not function except in a small area 
 around the Inland Sea. Japan did not repudiate 
 responsibility or concern in foreign affairs; she never 
 had any. 
 
 Japan's emperors therefore properly begin in 1868, 
 when they began to rule, with Mutsuhito who, on April 
 
RECESSION 281 
 
 6, gave Japan her "Magna Charta" and started her 
 off as an adult nation, like China, or the United States, 
 or any other country of the world with which she had 
 now to deal. It was because of the necessity of deal- 
 ing with the world that Japan set up a line of emperors 
 of which Yoshohito is the second of what in English 
 is the ruling blood line. 
 
 Yet the scores of little chiefs that were ruling Japan 
 were not vanquished, and in 1877 made a stand against 
 the Emperor comparable only to the stand which 
 feudalism undertook in Germany, by the World War. 
 Japan had only concluded her first self -initiated foreign 
 treaty, that with Korea, and had only taken means 
 to safeguard sway in Yesso and other outlying islands, 
 and it was more than one hundred years after the 
 United States had established itself in East Asia when 
 Japan actually entered into its international affairs, 
 with no acquired rights and no foreign position of her 
 own whatever. Her present position has resulted, 
 since 1876, entirely through "the privilege of youth" 
 which "lies in the inheritance of the dearly-bought 
 experience of age", which Nitobe says explains the 
 statement, often repeated, "that Japan has achieved 
 in five decades what it took Europe five centuries to 
 accomplish." 
 
 As Japan owed her past to China, she now owed her 
 present political status, learning, and international 
 position generally, to the West. For it was the order, 
 civilization, and international law of the West that 
 gave her all she claims in the affairs of East Asia 
 to-day. The relations of the United States with 
 China and their foundations in East Asia were long 
 fixed in authentic, impartial, recorded history when 
 this was brought about. And in what Japan claimed 
 
282 THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 as her position in the affairs of East Asia by which, 
 with the assistance of President Wilson, she kicked 
 us out of the affairs of China, we antedated her by 
 many decades. 
 
 The only uncommercial outlay, the only outlay that 
 may be classed as financially unproductive, which 
 Japan has made for the dominion she now enjoyed, 
 has been that of arms. And her arrival at the pre- 
 posterous position in East Asia, toward the United 
 States, which existed, was a situation that is not 
 explained upon any other hypothesis than that of 
 predetermined aggression for purposes of building up 
 an empire out of the frontiers and resources of other 
 nations. And Count Hayashi has confirmed this as 
 truth. This evidently was her true historical heritage. 
 Her other history might be set aside. Her reality, as 
 in the case of ourselves, lies in what she does. 
 
 I have enumerated many of the advantages which 
 the United States has conferred upon Japan, but 
 this has been better expressed by the Japanese, many of 
 whose countrymen are lashing themselves to remember 
 what those advantages were. At the time coincident 
 with the events which I am describing, Nitobe was 
 the envoy here of Japan, to felicitate us upon the 
 happy traditions of our relations, and I remain partial 
 to his words. He said: "When other nations tried 
 to bar our progress or slur our reputation, America 
 always stood for us and with us," although his words : 
 "her Stars heralded to the world the rising of our 
 Sun", intentionally the opposite, are rather suggestive 
 of that inferiority in her vicinity which Japan's poli- 
 ticians and expansionists have accorded us. Whatever 
 we have done for her is a part of the Open Door doc- 
 trine of what we would do for others. And nothing of 
 
RECESSION 283 
 
 this but has been held by Japan in these days as menac- 
 ing to her. Although there is to-day nothing that can 
 serve the aims of making China competent, strong, and 
 self-protective, which Japan professes to desire, so 
 well as American capital and American cultural enter- 
 prises, freely employed there, these are the things that 
 have aroused nearly all Japan's enmity toward us. 
 And this is easy to understand in the light of her 
 continuous policy since 1903-1905. No break has 
 occurred, no opportunity has been lost by Japan, in 
 her aggression for ousting other powers from Korea 
 and China, and possessing the cardinal material re- 
 sources of both countries, including all possible meas- 
 ures for subjugation of China's people, to take from 
 them their heritage in order to pay for her own arma- 
 ment acquired for the purposes of aggression and ex- 
 pansion, and create a Japanese credit that would make 
 Japanese Asiatic military hegemony financially inde- 
 pendent of the world. 
 
 In her demands made upon China, Japan was again 
 clearly exposed, caught with the proofs upon her. 
 With respect to the professions she has made respect- 
 ing the Open Door doctrine, she was seen in perhaps 
 the most compromising situation in which she had yet 
 been found. Her application, penetration, acuteness 
 in dissolving ties which cemented foreign interests and 
 rights was Teutonic. She was like no country so 
 much as Germany, regarding every affair of her neigh- 
 bors as her own, and looking upon all that did not 
 directly contribute to her domination as a menace to 
 be driven out. 
 
 In view of the progressive facts of Japan's course 
 during a decade, nothing more is needed to show that 
 it was Japan who first broke and destroyed finally 
 
284 THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 the original concert of the Open Door for the main- 
 tenance of China's territorial and administrative in- 
 tegrity and sovereignty which America had laboriously 
 built up. And she set adrift again, in the international 
 ocean, the vastest body of the human race and the 
 greatest social organism ever known, whose welfare and 
 whose destiny is closely associated with that of all na- 
 tions in the Pacific area. And she set it adrift for her 
 own purposes, regardless of the welfare of other nations. 
 
 When Japan had put the final touch to this act, as 
 she did in the program disclosed in her demands upon 
 China, and the evil that accompanied the exposure of 
 her act was having its effect upon American opinion, 
 she sent to us the venerable Baron Shibusawa, who 
 said that he had decided to come again to America, 
 before it was too late, and testify to the friendship of 
 Japan and the desire of Japan for peace. In his 
 youth, in the days of the restoration, he said, he had 
 been a conservative. But he became convinced of 
 the advantages of Western civilization, and he was 
 glad Japan was awakened from her sleep of ages by 
 America rather than by the hungry, ambitious nations 
 in other quarters. This thought could not but inspire 
 here the wish that Japan, in the awakening of yet 
 other nations, could have imitated us rather than the 
 hungry, ambitious nations of Europe in their years 
 of license in East Asia, or even have imitated them in 
 the Open Door period in their endeavor to give the 
 application of its principles an opportunity to demon- 
 strate the wisdom in which those principles had been 
 conceived and justify the international welcome which 
 they had received. 
 
 In 1903, when Roosevelt made his "Pacific Era" 
 speech, the nature of Japan's rise was not appreciated. 
 
RECESSION 285 
 
 We believed Japan had adopted Western culture and 
 the Open Door doctrine, and it was everywhere under- 
 stood in America that Japan and China subscribed to 
 the principle and spirit in the Pacific which we pro- 
 moted, which was a benevolent and cultural one, not 
 a military one, and was calculated to secure the Asiatic 
 hegemony of East Asia and a development of modern 
 civilization around the Pacific that would homogene- 
 ously and benevolently rule the destinies of the greatest 
 body of mankind, and exert upon the world the love 
 of order, civilization, learning, respect, and peace 
 exemplified in the traditions of China. 
 
 But Japan had broken the faith. Shibusawa was 
 an old man, and an honest envoy. He could not con- 
 jure away the name of Komura, nor make us forget 
 Ito. But his visit only emphasized the fact that the 
 golden bowl was broken. It but served to brighten the 
 memory of our achievements in the Pacific. We had 
 conquered that region in various ways, before Japan 
 knew anything about it, or had time to feel or feign 
 alarm or distrust. The sound of our guns at Quallah 
 Battoo, in suppression of piracy, or even at the Barrier 
 Forts did not reach her ears. She was asleep — she had 
 forsworn the world. Her people did not fully wake 
 up until the Russian-Japanese War, and then they 
 overlooked all previous history concerning our presence 
 in the Pacific except what related to Commodore 
 Perry. They read us out of East Asia and the Pacific. 
 They adopted all the war cries of aggressive nations, 
 and demanded a "place in the sun", as though they 
 had been deprived of something they had ever before 
 enjoyed and which we were trying to take from them, 
 to do which we had stolen upon the scene unsuspected, 
 and traduced a new found friend. 
 
286 THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 Neither our people in the Pacific area, nor our 
 country in comparison to Japan, can be considered 
 in any sense upstarts. Nations who profess to owe to 
 America much of what they boast of modern civiKza- 
 tion, and their international situation and relations, 
 can hardly call us newcomers in the affairs of East 
 Asia and the Pacific. 
 
 To recapitulate : The foundations of American trade, 
 political, social, and all other relations, and of American 
 obligations, and natural and acquired rights and re- 
 sponsibilities in all of East Asia, except in Japan, were 
 consummated nearly one hundred years before Japan 
 claimed any rights or admitted any responsibilities in 
 a large part of her present domain and beyond her 
 own shore limits ; nearly eighty years before she de- 
 cided to adopt any of the forms of the modern outside 
 world, nearly seventy-five years before she consented 
 to have any intercourse with nations. Japan appears to 
 be unable to see beyond her own hunger and ambition. 
 
 The place intended for us in the scheme of things to 
 which Japan's demands on China belong, and which is 
 a part of them, after the horror of them in America 
 was manifest, was then defined by Shibusawa. It had 
 often been defined by others, but Shibusawa's words 
 gave the impossible an emphasis which could no longer 
 be mistaken. 
 
 Japan's first object of annulling the principles of the 
 Open Door accomplished, she invited America to bring 
 in her capital behind Japanese enterprises for develop- 
 ing China, back it up with government support, and 
 thus give national sanction to Japan in her national 
 policy. Even as China herself, she had to have capital 
 to develop China, and to realize the ultimate aims I 
 hav^ already outlined. 
 
RECESSION 287 
 
 An examination of the utterances of responsible 
 Japanese apologists for Japan, and critics of the United 
 States in her relations with Japan in the Pacific, shows 
 that the prevailing Japanese opinion is that we must 
 accept : first, their view of East Asian affairs if we 
 are to understand each other ; and second, that they 
 are doing in China what is for the best interests of 
 China and of foreign powers. A number of the best- 
 known Japanese names in this country, — and some 
 of the ablest in this work are assigned to us, — occur 
 to me in connection with these opinions, but I pick 
 out as national spokesman Baron Yei-ichi Shibusawa, 
 aged seventy-six, as a nearly lifelong friend of America, 
 and the most recent and most eminent envoy to this 
 country since the visits of Marquis Ito and Admiral 
 Togo. 
 
 Baron Shibusawa, reiterating the specious petitions 
 made by Count Okuma and scores of his imitators in 
 the past to Western capitalistic nations to recognize 
 the intermediary services of non-capitalistic Japan in 
 exploiting China, and take from her a political and 
 military guarantee for the welfare of their investments 
 in exchange for the banking and mercantile commis- 
 sions which she would exact, said, in the course of his 
 numerous addresses in 1915, between San Francisco 
 and New York, as follows : 
 
 "There is a big field for cooperation between the 
 United States and Japan. You have the capital, 
 science, and experience. We are near China, under- 
 stand the Chinese, and are racially closely allied to 
 them. So there is no reason why these two nations, 
 by cooperation, should not succeed in taking the 
 largest share in the peaceful exploitation of China. 
 Here is an example of what I mean from my experience 
 
288 THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 as a mill owner : When you set up mills in China you 
 find that you cannot get foremen there. To bring 
 them from America would be costly. It would be 
 most economical to employ Japanese." 
 
 Yes. French mills in America, but German fore- 
 men; German mills, but Japanese foremen; English 
 mills but — foremen from some poor, but armed 
 political and diplomatic power waging a "political 
 and commercial penetration and expansion" into the 
 United States ! 
 
 Nitobe, in describing the code of the medieval 
 warriors of Japan, excuses himself for causing his 
 Western hearers to linger longer than they might over 
 the subject, on the ground that "without understand- 
 ing them, their ideas in regard to life, to duty, to right 
 and to wrong", modern Japan would "remain unin- 
 telligible." "If you can grasp their viewpoint, many 
 things which seem queer and paradoxical in Japanese 
 life will become clearer." 
 
 If it were not true that some of the worst of skilled 
 labor in China is Japanese, and some of the best in 
 the world is Chinese, it would take much more than a 
 grasp of the Japanese military viewpoint to make the 
 seemingly paradoxical in Japanese life out to be more 
 clear than it is in these words of Baron Shibusawa. 
 There is no doubt whatever of what he means, what 
 those for whom he speaks mean, what Japan means, 
 the entire military fraternity of Japan to their para- 
 doxes notwithstanding. He voices the Japanese over- 
 lordship of China and the Chinese people. But he 
 overlooks the most vital bearing of this proposition, to 
 us. The people of the United States believe in the 
 Chinese just as they believed in the Japanese, and 
 their desire is to eschew all comparisons, all partialities. 
 
RECESSION 289 
 
 all that is "queer and paradoxical", and "when other 
 nations try to bar their progress or slur their reputa- 
 tion, to stand for them", just as in the case of Japan. 
 This is something impossible to Shibusawa's and to 
 Japan's viewpoint. There is a terrific moral conflict 
 in the two viewpoints and the solution will never take 
 place if it depends upon accepting that of Japan, al- 
 though a solution is possible if Japan will adjust her 
 view to include a consideration of China's rights and 
 the rights of other nations in East Asia. The attitude 
 that a continuance of good understanding is dependent 
 upon a recognition of Japan in our enterprises in China 
 constitutes a monstrous insult to America. 
 
 The obvious reply to Shibusawa is this : Why did 
 not Japan establish her good faith as a foundation 
 for proposals of our cooperation with her in China by 
 cooperating with us on the basis of the Ito-Harriman 
 agreement? in the neutralization proposal, and the 
 Kinchou-Aigun Railway .f* We can only believe that 
 Baron Shibusawa is just another honest gentleman 
 traduced by his Government, like Ito. Or was he 
 merely a diplomat, "sent abroad to lie for his coun- 
 try ? " If so, he made a sad mess of it, for he told the 
 truth ! He exhibited how the Japanese are not a 
 creative but an imitative people, not a pioneer but a 
 parasitic race, battening itself upon other peoples. 
 He tells us that what we two peoples may have in 
 common in China lies in the employment and profit 
 which we can bring to her or to ourselves, regardless 
 of China. 
 
 Do Japanese see that Japan's conquest and ambitions 
 can be attained only by battening upon other nations, 
 and for this is the Japanese propagandist organization 
 kept at its maximum, and honest old men found to 
 
290 THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 make friendly pilgrimages to distant countries in the 
 effort to make others think as Japan does? The 
 docility of our people under the workings of this 
 process is one of the phenomena of the situation. 
 They do not manifest the least consciousness, nation- 
 ally, on the matter. 
 
 But when we consider the naive candor of Japanese 
 statesmen, publicists, and propagandists, understanding 
 Japan is no longer a puzzle, as was said of a well-adver- 
 tised American pacifist — it is a pursuit. 
 
CHAPTER XVII 
 Back to the Ships 
 
 It is obvious that the conflict between the United 
 States and Japan is centered, not in racial and economical 
 adaptation or amalgamation, but in moral principles 
 of life, character, and national existence that find a 
 manifestation in the Pacific and East Asia through the 
 existence of China. And they would have had no 
 chance to display themselves in that quarter had it 
 not been for this greatest of all treasuries of life, and 
 depositories of real and potential riches which is their 
 present refuge on our west, and to our long connection 
 therewith, and our acquisition of the Philippines. 
 
 There, in China alone, those moral principles are 
 bound up in the greatest symposium of solemn treaties 
 between great and many nations that ever were written 
 in recognition, protection, and support of organized 
 empire, civilized society, nationality, sovereignty, in- 
 tegrity, government, and human right. 
 
 As Japan's deeds, national policy, and declarations 
 proclaim her national assumption of the unfitness and 
 unworthiness of China to the consideration framed in 
 these treaties, we must know what is the matter with 
 China that we cannot rightly and to our lasting good 
 ever defend them. 
 
 291 
 
292 THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 Many criticisms of China have been made. Nothing 
 more need be said of what the Japanese think, and 
 there remain the estimates of the West. I begin with 
 ourselves. To me, the most original and interesting 
 of all criticisms is the learned denunciation in inclosed 
 epithets delivered in Peking during the reign of the 
 Manchus by Doctor W. A. P. Martin, dean of sina- 
 logues and missionaries in China, who said: "China 
 is not a nation ; China is an old ash barrel, held to- 
 gether by the Powers, with a hen inside, goose if you 
 will, sitting on golden eggs." The excoriation passed 
 unheeded then, for China, like Gallio, "cared for none 
 of these things." And whether one called her "a 
 dead whale on the ocean of international affairs", "a 
 bone of international contention", "a boneless giant", 
 "Maud MuUer", "a rag, a bone, and a hank of hair", 
 she cared not. And the few Chinese who heard the 
 invidious comparisons out of the carping West squan- 
 dered a little time in telling us how much the matter 
 was overrated, convincing us that, of China, it was 
 not so, anyway. "Big, unlearned, and poor"; "bear- 
 ing the curse, truly, of a political hookworm" ; "having 
 no intelligible self-expression"; the West took note 
 of little more than that "many children played round 
 her door." She was a decrepit and family-ridden old 
 woman living in a golden shoe ; a nobody in the modern 
 world, usurping a rich but tattered palace, while those 
 who envied her the satisfaction of Demosthenes, the 
 antiquity and glory of Cathay, and coveted the wealth 
 and magnificence of her habitation, snatched at its 
 fittings through the years and were laid beneath the 
 slab that marks the resting places of all those who 
 tried to hustle the East. 
 
 But as the race never dies, criticism and diatribe 
 
BACK TO THE SHIPS 293 
 
 went on until finally, about 1900, after every other 
 virile people in the world had condemned the fate 
 that through her apathy and indifference to the ways 
 of the West had overtaken China, as the one most to 
 be abhorred, came the last straw. Pacifists eulogized 
 China for her policy of nonresistance. Then China 
 woke up, and began to rub her eyes at the spectacle of 
 the modern world. 
 
 China had succeeded Turkey as the sick man of 
 the world, and many physicians met at the diagnosis. 
 The church came first. Since St. Francis Xavier had 
 struck his staff upon the southern coast crying, "Oh 
 rock, when wilt thou break .^" China's malady had 
 been heathenism. The clinic was made easy in those 
 days, ere complications from modern merchandising 
 and gunboating. What the matter was with China 
 was perfectly simple. But as the church brought the 
 leprosy of political domination, and added it to the 
 itch of China's stagnation, China solved the problem 
 of another disease thrust upon her by erasing the 
 church. She was equal to prevention if not cure. 
 
 Then came the Protestant missionary who stirred 
 up nearly all the real stir China has had. And ever 
 after, the dead level of criticism by the church was 
 one of Chinese sin. The church continued to urge 
 Christian belief upon China. Eminent laymen also 
 held this view, commending missionary ministrations. 
 This was the attitude of Robert Hart, whose opinion 
 on all questions concerning China was held in re- 
 spect. He once said that perhaps the best single 
 action China could take would be that of adopting 
 the Christian religion outright as the national faith. 
 Even a Confucian scholar had offered the opinion that 
 as Christianity was the prevailing religion of the most 
 
294 THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 advanced and strongest countries, China should adopt 
 it the same as she adopted Western sciences. 
 
 This was after the Russian-Japanese War, and there 
 was given in Peking an address by an eminent Prot- 
 estant missionary on the same subject, but under the 
 title: "The Question for China." The missionary's 
 answer was an affirmative; the question for China 
 was contained exclusively in the problem of what re- 
 ligion she should have, and her salvation lay in adopt- 
 ing Christianity. 
 
 It was a sermon with a practical infirmity. It was 
 fatal in its logic. Its remedy, to effect a cure, in- 
 volved the universally dangerous process of swapping 
 horses in midstream, while as an assertion, the answer 
 to the question for China had this effectual refutation, 
 namely, that although China had been acquainted 
 with Christianity for several hundred years, never- 
 theless, had any one asked the Chinese, hardly one 
 could have been found out of the hundreds of millions 
 to give the Sunday-school answer. On the contrary, 
 the universal reply in China would have been that 
 the question for China more than ever was one of 
 driving the "foreign devils" from Christian nations 
 into the sea. China had only just tried this, and the 
 result was the greatest evidence she had yet uncovered 
 of the primal correctness, if inexpediency, of that 
 course. The farther China went, the more apparent 
 this became to Chinese, and the more enlightened 
 Chinese there were who found this unction creeping 
 close to their hearts. 
 
 The first to stir China, the first to get a reaction, 
 were the missionaries. The elder Catholics stuck the 
 goad into both China and Japan and got the Inqui- 
 sition thrown into them in return. They snatched at 
 
BACK TO THE SHIPS 295 
 
 political power, but both China and Japan beat them 
 to it. Trade got the next reaction; it taught the 
 mandarin to respect the integrity of merchants and 
 the requirements of commercial intercourse. Still 
 China was behindhand and committed the unpar- 
 donable fault of getting into politics. China was 
 behind time at Macao in the sixteenth and seventeenth 
 centuries, at Canton in the eighteenth, at Nanking in 
 1842, at Tientsin in 1857-1860, at Seoul in 1894, at 
 Peking in 1900, with the Boxer uprising, as well as in 
 1908-1910 respecting international loans. And al- 
 though her movements were so rapid that in ten years 
 she went farther than in the previous two thousand, 
 she never was farther behind than in the matter of a 
 reformed monarchy for 1916. And it was seen that if 
 some other countries serving as drags to Western 
 hustle and Eastern grab should go down, China would 
 get the effect of the released force from all points of 
 the compass and suffer the whole jolt. 
 
 The political pace in China had been accelerated by 
 material progress. Little happened between 1517, 
 when the Portuguese came up the China Seas, and 
 1840. It took from 1842 to 1860 for the West to get 
 to Peking. Thirty-five years of silence then reigned. 
 But consider the rapid-fire epochs since 1895 — one 
 every two or three years, as defined by : Treaty of 
 Shimonoseki, Boxer Uprising, Russian-Japanese War, 
 foreign loans and financial and industrial reform, 
 revolution, republic, loss of Chinese colonies, mon- 
 archy, etc., all within twenty years. 
 
 A generous, energetic, well-meaning, and deserving 
 American thought to revive Persia and make the world 
 love her as it did Turkey and China, but failed because 
 Persia had been embalmed a long time before the Amer- 
 
296 THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 ican physician came; that was why he was called. 
 Except China, Turkey has been the only international 
 bqne the world of international bone-contenders cared 
 about. And if Turkey is found to be embalmed, the 
 fact that China is "yet alive" will make little initial 
 difference to the political blubber-hunters. Except: 
 It is in human nature that when the latter gather for 
 the first time about a single carcass, the troubled 
 spirit of John Hay may be treated to a soothing world 
 chorus of "holy horror" that may bring a reaction, a 
 pause in the riot of plunder, a breathing spell for 
 China. 
 
 A realization of all these things has left China's 
 critics anything but niggardly. They have been most 
 flattering. As a result China impersonates, as it 
 were, the whole human race, and individual men and 
 women are standing upon every hilltop, with ropes 
 and life buoys in their hands, trying to save her. A 
 very strong case has been made out against China. 
 Its argumentations, and argu-fermentations have been 
 heard for sixteen years, and while one's inclination is 
 to despise and distrust them, history seems bent 
 on writing the Chinese off the calendar because 
 they have not been able to speed up. It is said 
 that her whole defense has gone by the board, and 
 she has failed in the last resort, the resort of arms. 
 Even the Church would have condoned progress, 
 civilization, and respect in the world, set up by the 
 sword, but it was not of the Church or the world to 
 condone China's hanging like a carcass upon the 
 necks of those volunteering to help her. She was the 
 champion political mendicant of creation, unwilling 
 to raise a hand in her own behalf so long as some 
 one would do it for her. She suspected the outer aid 
 
BACK TO THE SHIPS 297 
 
 which took time by the forelock and offered itself, and 
 it was only possible to be to her a disinterested friend 
 when the wolves were not only about her but had 
 their teeth in her trunk. 
 
 Thus the critics pulled China into the last court and 
 found her a military bankrupt. Political mendicancy, 
 maintained as a continuous performance, effectually 
 prevented her from making any defensive alliance. 
 The fan, the umbrella, and the teapot had disap- 
 peared as military weapons in the Chinese army so 
 recently that they had had little influence in lighten- 
 ing her as a helpless burden to the powers. When the 
 Japanese first invaded Manchuria in 1894, the in- 
 habitants had pulled their boats ashore for them at 
 Pi-tzu-wo, and they repeated this gaucherie ten years 
 later, when they did a similar service for the Russians. 
 At Kinchou, a Chinese soldier suicided before a temple 
 shrine rather than die on a battlefield of the Japan- 
 China War. The capacity to make a military demon- 
 stration that would give her the power of making an 
 alliance, therefore, was not in her, and she was written 
 off militarily as a dead weight of danger to any nation 
 that might undertake singlehanded to defend her. 
 
 In politics and war her situation was hopeless. She 
 stood alone against the world. As I have described 
 in another place, stark civilization was her opponent, 
 *'and even the massive organism of Chinese society 
 might well be staggered at such a situation. Its 
 dangers were reflected in the opinions held in the 
 chancelleries of the great powers. She could not 
 realize the menace of opposing plans laid for her by 
 nations along her frontiers : already the powers had 
 taken her foreign customs. She faced the ordeal of 
 emancipating herself from foreign finance, and from 
 
298 THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 foreign relations whose complications and dangers 
 increased in the exact ratio of her rise to world con- 
 sciousness. Moreover, some of her leaders professed 
 indifference to these foreign questions which were the 
 whole substance of her political existence, and to the 
 fact that her fate as an entity was in the hands of four 
 powers, whose territories completely surrounded her — 
 Japan, Russia, Great Britain, and France. Other 
 powers, like the United States, Germany, and the 
 lesser European countries, could exercise little influ- 
 ence over the Chinese policies of these four powers. 
 Near or far, there was no border or outside nation to 
 come to China's aid. There were no virile Manchu 
 tribesmen left equal to leadership, as was the case in 
 1644. In short, stronger outside peoples had worked 
 out their own salvation without China, and China 
 could expect nothing from them." 
 
 China was without truth and honor. Having been 
 tried and found wanting, China's Western diagnosti- 
 cians and critics, including many eminent men from 
 both Europe and America, came to East Asia to view 
 the Confucian patient, and concurred in the criticism 
 that China after her revolution meant, "not the few 
 enlightened leaders, the Republicans, but the masses 
 scourged by contagion and famine, burdened with a 
 new poverty due to the higher economic plane of the 
 nations that surround and antagonize her, and op- 
 pressed by administrative anarchy. She was with- 
 out ejfficient labor, was cursed by ignorance, had no 
 common language or means of interstate, or even in 
 many places, inter-neighborhood communication, no 
 systematic currency or taxation, no internal national 
 credit, no roads or other adequate communications, 
 no money capital with which to elevate her economic 
 
BACK TO THE SHIPS 299 
 
 plane, so as not to be ground between those of rich 
 opposing nations. Her forests were impoverished, 
 her rivers uncontrolled, and with an increasing popu- 
 lation, the figure of government was gnawed at the 
 knees by starvation." Nothing was left unsaid of 
 China by many Western critics, except that Hell 
 yawned to receive her. 
 
 The chorus of calamity started by the Church, 
 swelled by traders, diplomats, and financiers, and 
 joined in by Western educators and intellectual leaders, 
 had aroused China's neighbors. And at last above 
 the din of revolution was heard a yet more terrible 
 indictment. Of all things came the curse of Japan. 
 The beneficiary had turned upon the benefactor : the 
 whelp had attacked his sire. The Japanese then pro- 
 nounced that condemnation which I have already 
 given, so well known because of the caustic eloquence 
 imparted to it by Okuma. On behalf of Japan, he 
 proclaimed the end of China. 
 
 And then the world woke up. It did not wake up 
 as much as it wanted to, because the World War was 
 coming on. But there were twinges of the Christian 
 conscience, for the Christian awakenment prematurely 
 of Japan, and the washing of Christian hands of Chris- 
 tian keepership of victimized China. 
 
 Time had made it easier and easier for everybody 
 to criticize China. It was easy enough when the 
 Church started the pace, when trade crystallized it in 
 the world, and politics and diplomacy exploited it. It 
 was easy enough before Japan took a hand in it. But 
 when she became an example of progress, even to some 
 Western nations, it became more easy to damn China 
 than before it had been easy to complain of her. Chris- 
 tian civilization has the shame of knowing that Japan 
 
300 THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 has damned China in its eyes merely by her virtues of 
 mihtary self-preservation. Constituting a large part 
 of the civilized world, in men and area, the world's 
 real center, and in modern times the cynosure of all 
 eyes, it can be said that "of all sad words of tongue or 
 pen" in the Pacific, "the saddest are these, it might 
 have been" that China would have beaten Japan to 
 a place in the "family" of nations. China has that 
 the matter with her which accounts for almost nothing 
 having been said of her in the great war crisis of man- 
 kind. Her only friend was America, and her only 
 means of world expression the untrammeled, but 
 "goat "-loving, vagarious, and irresponsible American 
 press. 
 
 It is easy to see that what I have already said is 
 merely an attempt to express the multitudinous answers 
 that have been returned respecting China in the past. 
 To ask to-day what is the matter with China is a 
 different thing. Up to the great epoch in China of 
 1905-1911, the matter with China was that which is 
 the matter with anybody whom everybody picks at. 
 She was the acme of imperfection. But she was so 
 bad, and all the rest of the world was so good, that 
 each offset and nullified the other. The world had 
 at last got suspicious and commenced to really look 
 about in order to find out what actually was the matter. 
 With grim humor, and a natural contempt for the 
 perspicacity of the West, a beacon was hung out on 
 Fujiyama, by Okuma, as I have explained, greatly 
 illuminating the scene. Some good things were said 
 of China. There was a man, now dead, whose cry 
 had come up from the Yangtse Valley that more per 
 capita happiness existed among Chinese than among 
 any people or civilization. It was Archibald Little, 
 
BACK TO THE SHIPS 301 
 
 and his voice was remembered. Robert Hart had 
 confirmed the truth of the discovery that despised 
 China alone had passed the acid test. It was then 
 that the question became : What is the matter with 
 China now? 
 
 After the Russian-Japanese War, the situation for 
 China was altered. A period of temporary confusion, 
 and it became clear that China's trouble was Christian 
 civilization's political irritant, modernized Japan. No 
 enlightened Chinese would have held the view that the 
 question for China was to drive out Western peoples. 
 On the contrary. And at the beginning of 1915, 
 Japan masked her beacon and answered the present 
 question: "What is the matter with China?" with 
 the political bombshell known as the demands upon 
 China. 
 
 In the rich kaleidoscope of changing events in 
 China it would be wasting time to linger over the 
 economical or ethical principles underlying these 
 changes. All know the influence of Christian educa- 
 tion, and of American institutions there. The increase 
 of population in East Asia and the financial demands 
 which accompany reform and progress are suflScient 
 answer to explain the economic turmoil. The effects 
 of the introduction of modern industrialism into East 
 Asia, and of foreign competition there, are, in their 
 general effects, everywhere clearly known. The as- 
 sumption by Japan of industrial, commercial, and 
 political leadership is also known. A glance at Jap- 
 anese literature shows . that Japanese thought, work- 
 ing under the yet young Western yeast there, reeks 
 with lugubrious reflections on Japan's wrongs and 
 dangers at home and abroad, and Japan's destiny 
 everywhere. Her policy everywhere confirms this to 
 
302 THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 be the spirit of her agents. "Japan's population 
 doubles itself in fifty years; ditto Korea, China; 
 whites double in ninety years, sometimes never; 
 Japan is the leader of East Asia and the Pacific ; there- 
 fore the future and the world are to Japan, and East 
 Asia under Japan." This describes the prevailing 
 Japanese imperialists' notion of the world. The 
 formidable ideas working under the shifts of the ka- 
 leidoscope are therefore political, and furnish the only 
 key to an interpretation of events. 
 
 In a war of the five continents and the seven seas, 
 as every one can see, it was China's fate to be again 
 left behind. Picked at by mankind, and flopping along 
 the strange road of the world, China, in the absence 
 of the other great powers, was to be struck at by Japan. 
 Thereupon came the quacks. It was found that the 
 Chinese, on the apparent authority of the American 
 adviser to the President, Professor of Constitutional 
 Government, Frank J. Goodnow, could be compared 
 to the mixed races of the unstable Latin-American 
 States, which, without automatic succession in rulers, 
 fall victims to military dictatorships, the worst form 
 of government. And so, with Yuan Shih-k'ai's sanc- 
 tion, his counsellors and henchmen, copying American 
 pacifists, set going a Preservation of Peace Society. 
 For what? Why, the gathering of monarchical sup- 
 port, and the isolating of opposition to the president 
 becoming emperor and saving China. 
 
 This was strange, as Yuan from close studies during 
 the last three years of the Manchu dynasty had con- 
 cluded that not more than three tenths of the whole 
 people belonged to the advanced party ; seven tenths 
 were still conservative and satisfied with the regime 
 of the empire; and if the revolutionists succeeded in 
 
BACK TO THE SHIPS 303 
 
 overthrowing the dynasty, another revolution might 
 take place headed by the conservatives, and having 
 for its object the restoration to a monarchy. "And 
 then there would be chaos for several decades." 
 
 The conclusion seems obvious that Yuan Shih-k'ai 
 was mistaken by the conspirators for the embodiment 
 of both revolutionists and conservatives, or he never 
 would have set out to mount the throne, as he did 
 immediately after Japan's demands. 
 
 It was a conspiracy. But, too, it was a conspiracy 
 to save China with the hand of iron. In a few weeks 
 all the parts of its hollow machinery were in the hands 
 of the Republicans and of the foreign powers, includ- 
 ing Japan — propaganda, telegram forms, codes, pass- 
 words, and everything. And the Republicans had 
 secretly paralleled the conspiracy with a plan of re- 
 bellion. 
 
 The machine was set in motion on August 30, 1915. 
 On October 7, it emitted the set process for nominating 
 Yuan Shih-k'ai as emperor. On December 11, Yuan's 
 Council of State read the votes of the monarchist's 
 agents in the provinces electing him emperor, and 
 tendered him the throne. On December 29, Yuan gave 
 orders to attack the Republican rebels, in arms against 
 his usurpation. He put the crown away, but on 
 January 2, 1916, entered the palace in the imperial 
 yellow chair of the last dynasty, sat on the throne, 
 received officials, and the salutation of "Imperial 
 Majesty", and appointed the Minister of Agriculture 
 and Commerce as a special envoy to the world, — well, 
 to Tokio, — to announce the new reign. The envoy was 
 given a final reception and entertainment by Japan's 
 representative at his legation in Peking, and then, as 
 the departure for Tokio was about to occur, Japan de- 
 
304 THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 livered to China a notification that the mission, headed 
 by the special envoy, could not be received in Japan. 
 On January 22, Yuan Shih-k'ai postponed the mon- 
 archy, and on March 22 resumed the republic. The 
 new revolution was on. 
 
 Japan had struck government by Chinese, at Peking, 
 which was setting out to save itself, a telling blow be- 
 tween the eyes, and placed itself in line with the rising 
 revolution. What the quacks failed to see was that 
 a monarchy could come in China only out of great 
 stress and trial, such as had produced a republic, and 
 such only as could produce the man for a monarchy, as 
 it had produced the man for the republic. The situ- 
 ation found Japan with all the great powers save Ger- 
 many and America at her back, still the master on the 
 mainland, with no promise of help from the outside 
 world. She was in line with the now enraged and 
 winning Republicans. Then came a characteristic 
 Chinese patriot's analysis of the situation of his coun- 
 try. E. S. Ling, in a plea for the republic, thus made 
 one of the latest summaries of what is the matter with 
 China.^ Condensed to a few flaming phrases it was : 
 *'It is heartrending to depict the situation of our 
 country. Fellow countrymen ! China to-day is at 
 stake ! And her peril is ' so imminent as to burn the 
 eyebrows.' The struggle is not one against race or 
 creed, but one against brothers of the same family. 
 Nothing is more tragic and suicidal than civil war. It 
 serves as a stepping stone to territorial acquisition by 
 some greedy power. * While the kingfisher and the 
 oyster are contending, then the fisherman reaps the 
 benefit' — of seizing both." 
 
 In short, the struggle was one of uniting to oppose 
 
 ^ North China Herald. 
 
BACK TO THE SHIPS 305 
 
 the "greedy power." All through the monarchical 
 conspiracy is woven also the thread of suspicion of 
 Japan. In some places Japan is named outright, in 
 others she is referred to as "a certain foreign power." 
 She is charged with having "lately forced England 
 and Russia to take part in tendering advice to China 
 [against the monarchy] under the pretext that the 
 Chinese people are not of one mind and that troubles 
 are to be apprehended." Later the monarchists at 
 Peking telegraphed secretly to their agents the fol- 
 lowing : "As a divergence of opinion exists between 
 Japan and the Entente Powers, the advice is of no 
 great effect. Besides, the Elder Statesmen and the 
 Military Party in Japan are all opposed to the action 
 [as above] taken by their Government." Yuan Shih- 
 k'ai and the monarchists were described by onlookers 
 as engaged in a death grapple with Japan, and they 
 were seeking advantage in the prospect of a divergence 
 of opinion and policy between the civil and the military 
 parties in Japan. 
 
 On the other hand, under the ever present shadow of 
 Japan's demands, the official republican loyalists who 
 rose up to suppress the monarchy, after charging 
 Yuan Shih-k'ai with impoverishing and debasing the 
 country, and setting the people against each other, and 
 setting forth his failure, at a time of "temporary re- 
 lief from external danger in consequence of interna- 
 tional friction, to improve this hairbreadth chance of 
 saving our nation", said thus : "he has proclaimed him- 
 self Emperor, and this at a time of imminent national 
 danger. Were a man standing by the side of his dying 
 father to seize a knife and stab him, what else would 
 so conscienceless a person not dare? And yet this is 
 just the thing Yuan Shih-k'ai is doing to his country." 
 
306 THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 In November, 1913, Sun Yat-sen, first President 
 of the Republic of China, who had taken refuge in 
 Japan on the recent collapse of the second revolu- 
 tionary rebellion, said : "I did not rebel against Yuan; 
 I opposed him because of the policy of assassina- 
 tion and suppression he had adopted in order to 
 prepare China for a monarchy. He has gone so far 
 now that the only possible outcome of his course must 
 be for him to make himself Emperor. He will do 
 that." 
 
 So he did: no doubt with the object of saving 
 China, saving it "in a time of international danger", 
 by a "hairbreadth chance", from a "greedy power." 
 The image of Yuan Shih-k'ai as a parricide, drawn by 
 the Republicans to show China's situation, is sufficient 
 evidence of what their conception of it was. Whether 
 defined by Republicans or monarchical conspirators, 
 the matter with China remains the same. With all 
 the other great powers absent from East Asia, it centers 
 itself in Japan — Japan, the Chinese patriot's bugHear, 
 his bete noir. 
 
 Japan welcomes this distinction. It is no longer a 
 point of Western etiquette in relations with our Jap- 
 anese friends to soft-pedal this theme. Japan's most 
 eminent men, public and private, have served notice 
 to mankind in a thousand ways that Japan has put her 
 hand to the Asiatic plow. The whole world's inter- 
 national firmament has been blazoned with that intel- 
 ligence ever since the runaway n'th-power arc-light 
 of her demands upon China replaced the beacon on 
 Fujiyama. In simple words, therefore, the innocent 
 onlooker must say that what is the matter with China 
 is Japan. 
 
 A country that in ten years has moved farther and 
 
BACK TO THE SHIPS 307 
 
 faster than in the two thousand preceding years cannot 
 justly be condemned from without. In the existing 
 conditions China's question is external. Her problem 
 is what can she do with Japan? The only answer to 
 this question is that suggested by the rapid progress 
 to consciousness in China, and by the military progress 
 of the world generally. The most hopeful sign in 
 China since the overthrow of the Manchu dynasty 
 was the rebellion against recurrent monarchy. Its 
 success demonstrated an important fact in Chinese 
 progress, namely, that the Chinese know where they 
 are going. It showed that a change of their form of 
 government could not be made any longer by con- 
 spiracy, that though they might know nothing about 
 the fine points of a republic, they now knew how to 
 assert their new birthright of volition in affairs that 
 are a key to the interests of the whole world. Chinese 
 will have justified their independence of foreign ad- 
 vice, and a great many other Chinese prerogatives, by 
 successfully wielding the cudgels to right their wrongs. 
 The bravery and peculiar eflSciency of the Chinese 
 soldier have never been successfully attacked. His 
 greatest defamer has been his literary brother within. 
 The American soldier of fortune. General Frederick 
 Townsend Ward, by his success in building up an 
 army that eventually broke in China the T'ai-ping 
 Rebellion, long ago revealed in the Chinese a great 
 reservoir of military talent, a martial mass which no 
 plummet can measure. Christianity, foreign advice, 
 reform, development, all have been panaceas offered for 
 the salvation of China. It may be that the personal 
 sacrifice of a Ward or the help of a Gordon is what she 
 needs most. There is no manner of doubt that if she 
 could roundly thrash Japan, not only all China's worst 
 
308 THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 troubles would be solved, but all those which Japan 
 rails against. China is aware of the value of thrash- 
 ing Japan, or any large nation, and of the fact that 
 from it there would accrue to her spiritual and material 
 blessings greater than from everything else she could 
 do combined. The light of history, awakened knowl- 
 edge, and reason commend to her the treasure of the 
 sword, the very "jewel in the lotus" of self-preserva- 
 tion and national life. She is reading the prophets 
 and sages who make Jehovah Himself jealous of its 
 power, and fearful that its secrets will be accepted at 
 their full value by the world. That the Chinese are 
 on the point of discovering this secret of a divine aid, 
 and a certain friend in time of danger to four hundred 
 millions, was one of the things revealed in Japan's 
 demands. 
 
 In 1906, David Starr Jordan, the eminent scholar, 
 educator, writer, and pacifist, in a baccalaureate 
 address at Bryn Mawr College, pronounced the French 
 an effete people furnishing a conspicuous illustration 
 of racial decay in Western civilization. 
 
 In 1916, David Lloyd George, the eminent English 
 statesman and Minister of Munitions said: "No 
 nation has reached the heights of the moral grandeur 
 of France during the war. I set her as England's 
 constant model. Soldiers and generals show qualities 
 of endurance, courage, and military skill worthy of 
 the highest deeds of Napoleon's army. We are now 
 too close properly to judge the immortal pages written 
 by France in the book of history, but historians of the 
 future will write of the splendid deeds of her sons in 
 letters of gold." 
 
 France's effeteness, essentially ascribed for years to 
 her inability to see France over-populated by French- 
 
BACK TO THE SHIPS 309 
 
 men, and to overflow her borders with immigrants to 
 other lands, was under the close scrutiny of all man- 
 kind ! 
 
 The kind of "effeteness" pronounced against China 
 was due largely to her inability to limit her population. 
 The only moral which reason can draw from these 
 considerations is that in determining a course of action 
 for the individual or the nation, especially with respect 
 to an innocent or unoffending and worthy people, 
 incomparably great, it is better to be guided by the 
 dictates of humanity and morality than by the judg- 
 ments of learning. Not only can no man judge to-day 
 what a people may be to-morrow : he cannot with 
 appreciable certainty determine wholly what they 
 are to-day. China to-day is more massive, greater, 
 and more hopeful than she has ever been. "She has 
 a full appreciation of her past, and has received great 
 gifts from the West. This is indeed, to her, the true 
 Golden Age" which it is possible for her to make 
 permanent. A nation whose concern in the Pacific 
 since 1784 has been directed to maintaining a policy 
 of safeguarding China in the integrity of her territory 
 and sovereignty, to securing equality of right among 
 nations there, and to protection for future generations 
 of Chinese of their birthright and heritage, has a task 
 from the prosecution of which it will never need to 
 recede. On those principles it can reassemble the 
 charts by which, from 1784, its ships have reached the 
 Pacific, and build decks from which to contend for its 
 integrity in the theater of the world's future greatest 
 events. 
 
CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 Blows from Japan 
 
 The gulf that yawns between China and Japan is 
 the same as that between Japan and the United States, 
 which was unwittingly measured at the time of Japan's 
 demands upon China, by President Wilson. Regard- 
 ing our own demands with respect to the policy of 
 Germany, whose submarines had sunk the Lusitania, 
 he declared that we asked no more for ourselves than 
 we asked for humanity. That doctrine, the doctrine 
 of the Open Door and equal right, was more foreign 
 and homeless in the Pacific than in the Atlantic. The 
 Open Door, as it had been understood and developed 
 since the days when we first came as free traders to 
 China, and before, had passed away. We were nearer 
 in understanding to China than to Japan. We were 
 one with China in our conception of the future. Re- 
 specting Japan, we were at the poles apart in concep- 
 tion of the future. 
 
 Even Bryan's dictum in connection with our with- 
 drawal from the loans, namely, that securing first the 
 moral and religious welfare of the Chinese people was 
 the best basis for commerce and trade, was as offen- 
 sive to Japan as our enterprises in finance and industry. 
 The missionary and teacher, as shown in Korea, and 
 as testified to in the Japanese press, was as repugnant 
 
 310 
 
BLOWS FROM JAPAN 311 
 
 to Japan's traders as to her "kulturists." Japan was 
 as incensed at the revolutionary effects in China of 
 American teaching and cultural influence as she was 
 at the impertinence and blunders of our diplomacy. 
 When her demands were applied to China, American 
 missionaries at Peking sent a cable dispatch of several 
 thousand words to President Wilson, invoking his 
 interference to shield the work of Christian civilization 
 in China from the menace of Japan's aggressions. The 
 cable tolls, amounting to more than five thousand 
 dollars, were so extravagant and costly that they 
 could be paid only by the Chinese exchequer. Several 
 delegations from the American missions and their 
 institutions in China, from the Yangtse Valley to 
 Peking, called on the Secretary of State and the Presi- 
 dent, at Washington, and laid before them the con- 
 ditions of insecurity and the menace to cultural inter- 
 course and international freedom already existing in 
 Japan's interference in China and the threat of an 
 extension to China, in the appreciable future, of such 
 conditions of missionary and cultural work as had 
 developed in Korea. 
 
 The rift which separated us in East Asia at the 
 same time was emphasized by our differences in this 
 hemisphere. We were negotiating over the question 
 of Japanese rights in California. We utterly failed to 
 reach an agreement; we had no common ground. 
 Unable to move our Government to interfere in Cali- 
 fornia, Ambassador Chinda rose to leave the State 
 Department, asking disappointedly respecting the 
 refusal: "Is that the last word?" And Secretary 
 Bryan replied: "There is no last word between 
 friends." 
 
 Nevertheless, the rift was widened and deepened. 
 
Sn THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 As a bridge across the gulf that lies between us, or as 
 a bar to the fleets and armies of the Pacific, this pro- 
 testation of friendship was frail and untrustworthy. 
 It could not stand the test of the great ques- 
 tion between the United States and Japan, which is 
 one respecting the rights of nations in East Asia, and 
 does not depend on the social and racial relations of 
 the two civilizations in the Western Hemisphere, 
 which is a subsequent issue. 
 
 The Japanese leaders of aggression and expansion 
 see that the weakness of their case lies in their not ante- 
 dating us, in rights and treaties, and the influences of 
 learning, culture, and national institutions, and in all 
 that concerns other foreign rights, in East Asiatic 
 affairs. They therefore seek to graft themselves upon 
 the Chinese stalk, and by domination of the Chinese, 
 stand for the Chinese, as well as for themselves, in all 
 Asiatic issues with us. 
 
 If Japan could be got to adopt a "Monroe Doctrine" 
 for East Asia, the gulf might be bridged and the great- 
 est difficulty between the civilizations across the Pacific 
 solved. So long as Japan forcibly demands special 
 rights on the continent, concessions, expansion of her con- 
 tinental population, perpetual leases, land, extraterri- 
 toriality, sovereignty, and exclusion of Western peoples, 
 her policy cannot be compared to the Monroe Doctrine. 
 It cannot be called the policy of the right of the un- 
 advanced to unhampered self-development. 
 
 Ito was the advocate of the policy in Japan nearest 
 to that defined by the Monroe Doctrine. But Komura 
 dressed him up in a political garb, along with other 
 Japanese statesmen, in which he became unrecog- 
 nizable to himself, and was caught dead in that garb 
 at Harbin. It was like decapitation, as understood 
 
BLOWS FROM JAPAN 31S 
 
 by the Chinese, with Ito's body wandering about Pur- 
 gatory looking for its head, and uttering curses upon 
 Komura. The Monroe Doctrine for East Asia, so 
 far as it was possible, was buried with Ito. In order 
 to draw near to the Monroe Doctrine principle in East 
 Asia, Japan must reverse her policy and go in the 
 opposite direction. Does any one believe she will 
 do it? If she will not, the Pacific problem goes for- 
 ward under full headway. 
 
 Japan will not reach that place in the road again. 
 She has gone too far. She entered China in the mean- 
 time by a back door. She came in by way of the 
 Russian frontier through special rights claimed on the 
 basis of equal rights with Russia, and with Russia 
 promoted expansion to cut China off from the rest of 
 the world. Nobody can be in doubt as to what was 
 Japan's aim in setting adrift this great body of the 
 human race. It was evidently the same as in the 
 case of Korea, namely, that by doing so, and by 
 manipulating other powers, she could bring China 
 under her own control. 
 
 Such a result would warn the West or such part of 
 it as continues to believe in treaties, and the peaceful 
 elevation of East Asia, to resume the fight for freedom, 
 democracy, and the rights of nations. Since August 
 1, 1914, nobody believes that in the struggle of Western 
 nations in the past that fight had been won. Even had 
 it been, those rights would still have to be defended in 
 the Pacific. If we are not prepared to be driven like 
 dumb coolies to the fate of the Pacific, we can only 
 dispute with every means in our power the expulsion 
 from treaty countries in East Asia, by"Japan, of West- 
 ern peoples and influences and their regulation through 
 Tokio. 
 
S14 THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 After her demands made upon China, it was clear 
 that the Japanese leaders thought they could go back 
 and make things over, so far as America is concerned, 
 on the ground of the failure of Western civilization to 
 meet Japan's immigrants halfway in this hemisphere. 
 If that is their thought, America will know how to 
 prepare for it. It is no doubt the motive for the propa- 
 ganda kept up in the United States, and a proper un- 
 derstanding of that motive and propaganda will come 
 first. When we have reached some conclusions among 
 ourselves on this point, we will understand more 
 clearly Japan's object in fighting old quarrels. 
 
 A country that is carving its frontiers out of other 
 people's preserves has to make many explanations. 
 Perhaps the worst evil of Japanese explanations is 
 that they pass current in this country, and many people 
 who acquiesce in them are incKned to beheve only 
 good of the Japanese and only evil of oiu*selves. And 
 one day when it is necessary, or worth while to a cal- 
 culating people, these too numerous protestations will 
 be resented. The confusion among both peoples thus 
 caused, preventing them from clearly separating the 
 two issues, which are spread ages apart by history, 
 treaty, and right, has been made to suit precisely the 
 needs of Japanese policy and utilized accordingly. 
 But the more insistent Japanese become in mixing and 
 reversing the issues, the more violent will be the clamor 
 for war in both countries. 
 
 Coming so late upon the scene of international 
 affairs in East Asia and the Pacific, as well as abroad, 
 the opportunity to go back and make things over was 
 the signal which in 1903 pointed out to Japan her great 
 role of military conquest. To recover advantages 
 which she was satisfied to ignore when others were 
 
BLOWS FROM JAPAN S15 
 
 trying to bring East Asia into the path of modern 
 knowledge and progress, and rights she never possessed, 
 she was obliged to resort to force and injustice. 
 
 It was not new in the world — it was the course of 
 her ancient Asiatic and European predecessors whom 
 she chose to imitate. Epithets that were long hurled 
 between Europe and East Asia were cast back and 
 forth in the Pacific. In 1903, Russia advised Japan 
 to occupy herself with domestic and internal develop- 
 ment. In 1905, Japan returned the compliment. In 
 1910, in the selection of July 4 as the date of Japanese 
 emancipation of Russia's affairs from the restraint of 
 the principles of the Open Door, and Japan's inde- 
 pendence of the obligations which Western civilization 
 and international law laid upon all nations in East 
 Asia, she began against us the petty but vindictive 
 innuendo with which she had, it must be admitted, 
 promoted a successful conquest of her fighting op- 
 ponents, notably Russia. In her advice to Germany, 
 in 1914, at Kiaochou, she employed the very divinely 
 retributive phrases in which, with Russia and France, 
 Germany had warned her out of Liaotung. And in 
 1915, at Peking, she advised the rest of the world in 
 the same way. 
 
 "Japan never forgets," and she has furnished all 
 the evidence to show that she is engaged in avenging 
 old insults, in more than evening up old scores. Her 
 surreptitious demands made upon China showed she 
 trusted nobody ; she had no friends. Was it to be 
 expected next that, to opportunely electrify the world, 
 she would attack Spain in some strategical diplomatic 
 center, for the political grudge she bore her in the 
 seventeenth century, on account of the pretensions of 
 the Pope's religion ? Was that to become the organic 
 
316 THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 reason of her latest resentment of our presence in the 
 Philippines? And would she fight every one, as she 
 had advised and threatened every one, on occasion, 
 because, as Nitobe said, the Western powers at one 
 time, about "forty years ago, seriously discussed the 
 partitioning of Japan ? " 
 
 We laughed when Japan turned their own phrase- 
 ology upon Russia, France, and Germany. There 
 was a great silence when she played with the date of 
 the foundation of American independence and the 
 principles of the national existence of the United 
 States. I have waited until this return to the incident 
 of the selection of July 4 as the date for the Japanese- 
 Russian " predatory pact ", to make a necessary slight 
 analysis of this diplomatic torpedo left upon our track 
 in the Pacific, for our elevation. To do the people 
 justice, they were too indifferent or too ignorant to 
 resent the Japanese innuendo. But it was a circum- 
 stance that could not escape detection, and it deserves 
 careful psychological study. 
 
 The Government of the United States never has 
 sought to insult the Japanese nation. Americans be- 
 lieve it incapable of doing so. Yet Japan, through its 
 highest oflSce, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, appears 
 to have made the most careful arrangements to put 
 itself on record in the title role of international insult 
 across the Pacific by methods peculiarly associated in 
 the minds of Western peoples with the petty, des- 
 picable, and "Oriental." While felicitating the nation 
 officially through its ambassadors and ministers in no 
 less than forty-eight capitals of the world, and through 
 its consuls-general, and consuls, in a score times as 
 many American consulates-general and consulates of 
 the world, to say nothing of the official felicitations on 
 
BLOWS FROM JAPAN 317 
 
 the decks of our war vessels in their stations in the 
 world's ports, and the direct felicitations of the Jap- 
 anese Foreign Office at our Embassy in Tokio and at 
 the State Department at Washington, the Japanese 
 Foreign Office executed this pact for a Japanese-Rus- 
 sian Asiatic doctrine. Its officers either executed it 
 and went out to felicitate their American colleagues, 
 or they went out and felicitated them and came back 
 to execute it. It was all done on the same day, July 
 4, 1910. 
 
 That "the Japanese are a proud and sensitive people, 
 who prefer to be wronged rather than insulted" is a 
 gratuitous euphony in the vocabulary of Japan's self- 
 appointed American defenders, which has always had 
 the respect of American critics of Japan. If this is 
 so of the Japanese, the depth of their anguish when 
 wronged is somewhat measured by the insults of which 
 their leaders on occasion are capable. And their suffer- 
 ings are not without a compensating talent. 
 
 We did not have a war with Japan in ten years as 
 Harriman thought. By surrender at every point of 
 contact in the Pacific, except in California, and by the 
 World War, we were brought to avoid it. Japan 
 eliminated us for the present because she could; it 
 was a feasible undertaking, like any ordinary diplo- 
 matic project. We kicked against the pricks, but we 
 retired because we would not fight and would not 
 compromise. We can see that any pact with Japan 
 is one in which we would pay, along with China. Even 
 Russia had not pretended that she was sharing with 
 Japan. She merely began paying on demand, by 
 installment, the high price for her pact which she re- 
 fused to pay in an indemnity after the Russian-Japanese 
 War. 
 
318 THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 Conditions in the Atlantic, because of the World 
 War, then came to a state resembling those in the 
 Pacific. It had been as out of place for us to sanction 
 the Japanese policies of the Europe-Japan alliance in 
 the Pacific as it was now to sanction central European 
 policies in the Atlantic. It was as out of place to 
 countenance in the Pacific a Japanese policy sanctioned 
 by Europe as it would be to practise in the Atlantic 
 the policy of Japan. Should we basely accept the so- 
 called inevitable biological facts that are said to sanc- 
 tion the making of a bloated and unnatural Japanese 
 empire out of other peoples' territories in the Pacific, 
 as have Turkey, Austria, and Germany in Europe, for 
 example, the godlessness of the Pacific would be com- 
 plete so far as government is concerned, and we would 
 have surrendered our principles and accepted those 
 involved in the fate of Belgium and Serbia. The 
 choice offered us by Shibusawa was absolutely un- 
 thinkable to the American mind, as it was previously 
 to the British, and impossible to the American con- 
 science. No government could be tolerated that at- 
 tempted to strike such a bargain with Japan. 
 
 We drew even farther away than if Japan had not 
 made to us those gauche overtures expressed by Okuma, 
 Shibusawa, and others whom I have quoted, and 
 which Ito probably never would have made. Our 
 people in China complained that we abandoned them. 
 Our natural policy being one that takes more force to 
 support and stick to than any other we might be per- 
 suaded to adopt, by powers like Japan, Russia, or 
 even Germany, we left them behind. But it is not 
 conceivable that Americans can be persuaded from 
 it. If they are not traduced in succession by their 
 politicians, they will return to the Pacific. 
 
BLOWS FROM JAPAN S19 
 
 It is possible that we have overplayed our hand in 
 East Asia in the matter of educational and political 
 influences, especially in the development of Japan, 
 somewhat as Germany overplayed in this country in 
 connection with the World War. It is possible that, 
 true to human nature, or "biology", the Japanese 
 can never forgive us for being their predecessors and 
 leaders, in the Pacific, that is. We know that a record 
 clear of having deprived any nation or people of civ- 
 ilized liberty, freedom, territory, sovereignty, — clear 
 of revenge, — is not enough. To give and take in 
 international affairs, to be fair, will not see us through. 
 We have to arm. A country that desires to keep an 
 exalted foreign policy needs a larger military than one 
 which, by pulling and hauling and trading with other 
 powers, pursues a selfish course of aggrandizement. 
 The latter confines the field of hostile contact to the 
 direction of its selfish aims, and by sharing the spoils 
 with whom it must, extends around itself the area of 
 neutrality. The former has to rely upon the honor 
 and far-seeing discernment of nations and a belief that 
 they are not totally depraved. 
 
 Our problem is large, but the line of our movement 
 is that of the principles on which our country was es- 
 tablished; they are the same as in the Open Door 
 doctrine, and we cannot change them. We have no 
 certain way of massing our people behind our Gov- 
 ernment and our Government behind the inclinations 
 and aspirations of our people, as has Japan. But our 
 experiences in China and the affairs of the Atlantic 
 have exercised a lasting influence over our foreign 
 affairs. They have been the instrument that molded 
 reform of home and foreign banking, communications, 
 and foreign trade methods which may be seen in 
 
320 THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 movements to strengthen our position throughout the 
 three Americas and in the world ; and though we can- 
 not hope to be the diplomatic genius of international 
 coalitions that Japan is, nevertheless events must shape 
 themselves to the same ends in the Pacific that we are 
 pursuing in the Atlantic. And if America, the de- 
 mocracy, is to continue to exist, it will be because the 
 gulf between the policy in the Atlantic and that in the 
 Pacific has been closed up, and the rights of all nations 
 there, large or small, strong or weak, are respected. 
 
 We have to cherish with an indelible recollection 
 that it was Japan that prevented the realization of 
 our trade and the mutual benefits of commerce, and 
 by our answer demonstrate to her that we accept the 
 gauntlet she has thrown down. Japan has fought 
 our influence on the continent and in the territories 
 of our ancient friends since before 1880, when she 
 resented our effort at opening Korea. According to 
 the semi-official testimony of her Year Book and many 
 public official and unofficial utterances, she blames us 
 largely for the necessity of keeping up her big military 
 program. There is no better way of knowing what 
 her civilization thinks of us, and what its conception 
 of our civilization, its institutions and aims, is than 
 by what that civilization is doing internationally. 
 And what it is so doing is expressed in arms. It 
 seems to act from a belief that our civilization has 
 traduced it. All the paradoxes of Japanese character 
 are reproduced in Japan's world position. Nothing 
 could justify her in her course so much as a repudiation 
 altogether of Western civilization to allow her to 
 fulfill what she conceives to be her manifest destiny. 
 Then we would be at the poles apart. And this is the 
 logical outcome of her policy since 1905. 
 
BLOWS FROM JAPAN 321 
 
 Although Japan has no friends among nations, she 
 has partners. And there is one great fact about her 
 iuternational position : she manipulates Europe on 
 our western frontier. China attracted Europe to the 
 Indies, to East Asia. But Japan made it back up her 
 own power in the Pacijfic area. In 1905, Japan deter- 
 mined not to let us have Europe for our historic doc- 
 trine of equality and right in East Asia and on our 
 west. She created the Manchurian allies to prevent 
 that. We preferred Open Door Europe in China. 
 She gave us Japan and the principles of Prussia in 
 China and in the Pacific. Whether we are entitled to 
 the domination of the Pacific or desire it is no longer 
 the question. The Pacific is in the possession of the 
 Manchurian allies in the person of Japan. 
 
 Besides the United States, Japan has other nations 
 that still fear her; and in further evidence that since 
 the July 4, 1910, predatory pact to exclude the 
 United States and Open Door influences guarding 
 Chinese integrity and sovereignty, she manipulates 
 Europe on our western frontier, Japan, on July 7, 1916, 
 announced a new convention with Russia which the 
 Foreign OflSce at Tokio summarized for publication 
 thus : 
 
 "First — Japan will not participate in any political 
 arrangement or combination against Russia, which 
 assumes the same obligations. 
 
 "Second — In case one country's Far Eastern terri- 
 torial rights and special interests recognized by the 
 other are menaced, both Japan and Russia will confer 
 on methods to be taken with a view to mutual support 
 and cooperation in order to protect and defend these 
 rights and interests." 
 
 "These rights and interests" repeatedly described 
 
322 THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 by Japan and Russia, as I have shown, are special 
 rights and interests, not equal rights and common 
 interests as related by Japan and the United States, 
 for instance, in the Root-Takahira agreement, and all 
 of them belonging to the one are "recognized by the 
 other" country. A most illuminating comparison of 
 this with the former pact and its preceding entente, 
 in the light of present history, is left to the reader. 
 
 This second pact was not signed on July 4. With 
 no diplomacy, and no ships. Uncle Sam was by this 
 time nearly out of sight in East Asia and the Pacific. 
 It was signed on July 3. Like the Root-Takahira con- 
 vention, it was a fear agreement. The Westminster 
 Gazette of London rather inadvertently let the cat out 
 of the bag when it said of the new pact: "Russia is 
 no longer pursuing ambitions in the Far East." It 
 meant that Japan's ambitions were enough to take 
 Russia's breath away, that equality of "special rights", 
 or "fifty-fifty" with Japan, was good enough, and 
 Russia could confidently leave things in Japan's hands. 
 And as Japan was going strong, it was better to be in 
 her hands than to get in her way. 
 
 The text of this convention was withheld from pub- 
 lication, and we were left to find out its most important 
 stipulations "somewhere in" future time and event, 
 probably when it was too late. But enough became 
 known at the time of announcement to show that the 
 convention was another capitulation by Russia to the 
 importunities and menace of Japan, not only to the 
 extent of pledges of support, but of material interests. 
 Petrograd let it be known that in a supplementary 
 arrangement, Russia surrendered to Japan the railway 
 connecting Japan's South Manchurian railway system 
 with the Sungari River, and recognized Japanese right 
 
BLOWS FROM JAPAN 323 
 
 on the Sungari as far down as Petuna in Mongolia, a 
 city wherein, since her war with Japan, Russia had 
 been seeking a barrier to Japanese expansion. 
 
 Russia's dehcate balance in East Asia, represented 
 in these doings between herself and Japan, was un- 
 mistakably disclosed by her Minister of Foreign Affairs, 
 Sergius Sazonoff, who was thus quoted by the Petro- 
 grad Bourse Gazette: "The present [World] war," said 
 he, "opens up a series of problems for Russia, the solu- 
 tion of which necessitates our confining our attention 
 to the West [Europe] for many years. Relying on 
 our solidarity with Japan as regards Far Eastern ques- 
 tions, we can devote all our energies to the solution 
 of these problems with the assurance that no power 
 will take unfair advantage of China to carry out its 
 ambitions." 
 
 Certainly not! Japan had only done that steadily 
 since the World War set in, beginning immediately 
 upon the occupation of Kiaochou and German Shan- 
 tung, ordering China to extend Japan's expiring lease 
 of Liaotung in Manchuria, and the railway there, to 
 ninety-nine years, and enforcing the bulk of the 
 demands of January-May, 1915, already described. 
 But the real anxiety of Russia was not for China's 
 welfare ; it related to unfair advantage being taken of 
 Russia in the carrying out of ambitions in East Asia. 
 When comparison is made with the comments of the 
 other members of the predatory pact, it will be seen 
 even more glaringly than the reader has already ob- 
 served, how complete is the distrust in this comment 
 by Sazonoff, by omission of every syllable that might 
 express even the least trust of Japan. 
 
 But the fullest explanation of the new charter of 
 Japan's loosed pack in East Asia and the Pacific was 
 
SM THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 given by Japan's Premier, Count Okuma, and printed 
 on July 8, in the New York Times. It said : 
 
 "The purposes of the Russo-Japanese convention 
 are an extension of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance. It 
 aims to preserve Far Eastern peace. Japan cannot 
 bear China's long political disturbances, upsetting 
 Japanese commercial interests in China, whose com- 
 mercial development brings the most benefit to Japan 
 on account of geographical contiguity. 
 
 "Japan welcomes American money and investments 
 and will steadfastly maintain the open door policy in 
 China. There is a full understanding with Great 
 Britain, who welcomes the new convention indorsing 
 the Anglo-Japanese Alliance. 
 
 "The reason Japan does not want to take the full 
 burden of Far Eastern peace alone is that Japan is 
 afraid of being misunderstood by other powers, es- 
 pecially China. Japan welcomes any power's activity 
 to maintain Far Eastern peace and commercial develop- 
 ment. 
 
 "Japan has no ambition for Chinese territory. The 
 territorial ambition of the old timers is a dream. Japan 
 annexed Korea and leased the Manchurian Railway 
 zones, as Japan's existence was menaced. ... I am 
 sure the powers understand Japan's attitude toward 
 China, seeing that Japan welcomes any powers' activity 
 for Chinese peace. Japan is unable to steal China's 
 territory when the former is openly cooperating with 
 other powers. 
 
 "Tell Americans we heartily welcome their com- 
 mercial and industrial activity in China. America 
 has enormous capital, which, if commercially and in- 
 dustrially invested in China, will further Japan's trade 
 with China." 
 
BLOWS FROM JAPAN 325 
 
 Exactly. The purposes of the convention are exten- 
 sion of the Anglo-Japanese alliance, to preserve Japo- 
 Russo-Anglo-Franco East Asiatic peace. And thereby 
 "bring the most benefit to Japan", especially at a time 
 when lack of European capital for development of 
 China, and "disturbances in China" caused by fear 
 and resentment of Japan and Japan's acts, and the 
 struggle for light and life, "upsets Japanese commer- 
 cial interests." 
 
 American capital, gelded and shorn of all trade- 
 carrying rights and plunderable by the predatory pack, 
 the moment it is invested, shorn of government pro- 
 tection and diplomatic guidance and care, and the 
 "commercial and industrial activity in China", of 
 Americans, is "welcome", because "America has enor- 
 mous capital which, if commercially and industrially 
 invested in China will further Japan's trade with 
 China." And with all the Pacific for that matter, 
 especially that trade between America and China. 
 This is only Baron Shibusawa's proposal that in the 
 future of the Pacific we take the bonds and give Japan 
 the stock. The Honorable Hashimura Togo's knowl- 
 edge of America has undoubtedly been recently dis- 
 seminated in Japan, possibly carried home by Baron 
 Shibusawa himself. Nothing seems to be lacking in 
 light upon Japan's reasoning and view of things, except 
 private official and authoritative Petrograd, London, 
 and Paris views as to the ability of Japan to " steal 
 China's territory" singly or for them all, "when the 
 former [Japan] is openly cooperating with the other 
 powers [that is, Russia, Britain, and France — the 
 Manchurian Allies] ", and whether under present con- 
 ditions they prefer Japan should do it. It would con- 
 tribute to reviving the gaiety of nations, if known. 
 
S26 THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 With such a reinforced bond as this pact, among 
 the predatory pack of Manchurian allies, Japan's 
 leaders had lost their erstwhile resentment respecting 
 American "dollar diplomacy" exercised through capital 
 and physical interests in China. Eleven years after 
 Komura first started Japan on the pursuit of an alliance 
 with Russia, we see the old veteran pilot-statesman, 
 Okuma, with the second compact between his knees, 
 resting on his oars as he talks to the American corre- 
 spondent about the ship of state. When he had 
 finished, British unction felicitated and regaled the 
 pack. The London Daily Chronicle said : "This further 
 step toward the definition of the relations of the powers 
 in the quarter of the world which is always more or 
 less debatable cannot but be acceptable to Great 
 Britain, whose special interests in the Far East, it is 
 being universally recognized, do not conflict with 
 those of any of our allies and are indeed strengthened 
 by the agreement among our friends." That has the 
 smug, grandiose sound of Secretary Knox's announce- 
 ment of the completion of his diplomatic plan, toward 
 which the action of the American Government had been 
 directed, in Manchuria, a long time ago. So also the 
 following from the London Morning Post: "This 
 drawing together of our two allies is an event that 
 must be as gratifying to British sentiments as it is 
 wholly consonant with British interests." 
 
 Friends all. Four minds with but a single thought, 
 four hearts that beat as one. Which reminds us that 
 it has been hitherto inconceivable in political circles 
 as well as in scientific and literary, how four civilized 
 nations having less practical interests in common, more 
 unlike racially, temperamentally, and in traditions, 
 than the Saxon, the Japanese, the Slav, and the Gaul, 
 
BLOWS FROM JAPAN S27 
 
 could be assembled together in compact, a consumma- 
 tion of which a high and brilliant British officer said 
 in 1903, when the affiliation began: "The representa- 
 tives of the two great Western cultures have joined 
 with the two nations of savages." That, no doubt, 
 has been forgotten both by the Briton who said it 
 and the Frenchman who agreed to it. 
 
 But perhaps only the London Times, still the fore- 
 most exponent of authoritative British opinion, though 
 no longer "The Thunderer" of British thought, most 
 clearly defined the new pact and made it finally most 
 certain that its signatories would never lead either 
 China or the United States into misunderstanding the 
 whole of them, or any one of them. It said: "The 
 cardinal merit of the agreement is that it constitutes a 
 fresh guarantee against the insidious efforts to sow 
 dissension between the signatories." And contrary 
 to what Russia herself always has said, and many 
 Britons as well, namely, that it was American diplo- 
 macy in East Asia that accomplished this union of 
 Japan and Russia, the Times went afield, as natural 
 under the circumstances, to attribute the affiliation to 
 German diplomacy in Europe, in the words: "This 
 new agreement is an illustration of how short-sighted 
 German diplomacy has been. In the Far East as in 
 the West it has brought together those whom it partic- 
 ularly sought to set at enmity." 
 
 Our place in international chancelleries of state was 
 no longer worth consideration. What is fame ! 
 
 Nations that form compacts, as well as carve fron- 
 tiers for themselves out of China and other Pacific 
 lands, need to make many explanations, lest they be 
 misunderstood. The two countries of the world whose 
 reposeful confidence and trust is worth while most 
 
S28 THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 profitably to-day, the two peoples whom it is most 
 economic not to be misunderstood by, are the Republic 
 of China and the Republic of the United States. 
 They both have about the same kind of diplomatic 
 establishments and plunderable wealth. The principal 
 difference is that China's wealth is mostly raw wealth, 
 that of the United States is largely twenty -four carats 
 fine and garnered by the roadside. Japan is just be- 
 tween these two ripe, juicy plum puddings, and as for 
 her several too unctuous allied eulogists, her policy of 
 making the utmost from their absence from East Asia 
 shows that she trusts none of them. 
 
 The Japanese Government, following the achieve- 
 ment of this pact, was visibly elated by a great self- 
 satisfaction and self-confidence. After the German 
 drives that beat back the Russian armies in Europe, 
 Russia was dependent upon Japan for re-armament. 
 Then came a breakdown of her munition connections 
 in the United States and the congestion and suspen- 
 sion of traffic across America and the Pacific of muni- 
 tions from the Atlantic states. Russia was more 
 dependent upon Japan than ever. It was at this 
 moment that the new pact was realized by Japan, and 
 consequently the seven million dollars in munitions, 
 reported as part of the Japanese amount against Rus- 
 sia's credit, to cancel which Russia consented to the 
 lopping off of her Manchurian railway and the admis- 
 sion of Japan to the middle Sungari Valley and to 
 northeastern Mongolia, only hinted at the extent to 
 which Russia in East Asia was at the mercy of Japan. 
 
 And both governments, sitting over the affairs of 
 East Asia and the Pacific, "drank wine and talked 
 tea, or drank tea and talked wine." While Minister 
 of Foreign Affairs Sazonoff in Petrograd, July 7, talked 
 
BLOWS FROM JAPAN S29 
 
 of "the assurance that no power will take unfair ad- 
 vantage of China to carry out its ambitions". Premier 
 Count Okuma in Tokio further explained the com- 
 pact as one in which Japan entered because she did 
 "not want to take the full burden of Far Eastern 
 peace alone" and was "afraid of being misunderstood 
 by other powers, especially China." 
 
 Aside "other powers", and a word about Premier 
 Okuma's fear of China's misunderstanding Japan. 
 
 The new Japanese-Russian pact was signed on July 3. 
 On August 13, Japanese troops were at Chang-chia-tun, 
 head of navigation on the Liao River, where the latter 
 comes out of Mongolia into Manchuria, eighty miles 
 north of the head of China's own railway at Hsin-min- 
 tun (near the line of the proposed Kinchou-Aigun 
 Railway, the concession for which was given to Ameri- 
 can financiers), and blocking the Chinese highway to 
 Petuna on the Sungari, where Japan now had a Rus- 
 sia-Mongolia outpost by the secret terms of her new 
 pact. And here these Japanese troops came into 
 conflict with Chinese troops with a result of fifty 
 Chinese and eighteen Japanese killed and wounded, 
 all several hundred miles from the nearest Japanese 
 frontier, Korea, and more than thirty miles from 
 the Japanese-leased Manchurian railway. Thereupon 
 Japan directed a military mobilization near the scene, 
 and on September 3, just two months after the signa- 
 ture of the new compact with Russia, the Chinese 
 Foreign Office let it be known that Baron Gonsuke 
 Hayashi, Japanese Minister in Peking, had presented 
 to China certain Japanese demands and representa- 
 tions, including : 
 
 "First — Punishment of the officers in charge of the 
 Chinese troops. 
 
330 THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 "Second — The restriction of Chinese troops in their 
 relations toward Japanese in South Manchuria and 
 Inner Mongolia. 
 
 "Third — Indemnification of the families of the 
 Japanese killed. 
 
 "Fourth — The granting to Japan of police rights 
 in Inner Mongolia, and employment of Japanese police 
 advisers in South Manchuria." 
 
 Representations that were not given out enabled the 
 Chinese Foreign Office to say that Chinese authority in 
 Inner Mongolia would be eliminated if the secret and 
 known demands were acceded to; that Japan de- 
 manded : formal apology by the Chinese Governor 
 at Mukden to the Japanese authorities there and at 
 Dairen; the extension to Inner Mongolia of rights 
 conceded to Japan in Manchuria in response to her 
 ultimatum to China of May, 1915, including the recog- 
 nition of "special interests" for Japan in Inner Mon- 
 golia, the right to have military monitors with China's 
 troops there, and in Manchuria, and in the Chinese mili- 
 tary schools. In other words, Japan returned to her 
 suspended demands of January-May, 1915, which in 
 May, 1915, she warned China she would resume. 
 
 The Chinese are unadvanced in many ways, but 
 especially in those ways which spell parts of contem- 
 porary Europe in the latter's savagery. And by the 
 standards of those who do the spelling, and of Japan 
 which imitates them, she is immensely stupid. But 
 Premier Okuma was not ignorant enough to believe 
 that there was any chance whatever for the Chinese 
 to misunderstand Japan. And Minister Sazonoff at 
 Petrograd cannot be held to consider Russia as still 
 taking her wine and her tea from the nursery bottle. 
 
 Another thing. Okuma, while resting on his oars 
 
BLOWS FROM JAPAN 331 
 
 and eyeing the American correspondent, said: *'We 
 heartily welcome their [Americans'] commercial and 
 industrial activity in China." So ! By Japan's leave. 
 And after about one hundred years of free trade inter- 
 course with and activity in China, before Japan had 
 any civilized relations of any kind with China ! 
 
 Okuma's words are the measure of Wilson's and 
 Bryan's acts of March 18, 1913, and after. 
 
 Okuma also said : "Japan welcomes any power's 
 activity to maintain Far Eastern peace and commer- 
 cial development." Which invitation he well knew 
 the American Government would not accept, for he 
 instantly followed it with this statement: "When the 
 Allies [Manchurian and European] advised Yuan 
 [China's ambitious president] to postpone the monarchy, 
 Japan twice invited American participation. President 
 Wilson indorsed the Allies' advice in principle, but 
 refused participation, saying America did not want to 
 interfere in Chinese internal affairs." Our methods 
 of peace and commercial development were not 
 Japan's. 
 
 And he knew American capital would not accept, 
 for President Wilson had again barred it out. Under 
 the oppression which Japan was exerting against China, 
 the latter, during the time the new pact was being 
 negotiated and just before it was signed, was trying 
 to get thirty million dollars in the United States. The 
 President raised again the 1912 loan question, when 
 the State Department advised the bankers of the former 
 American group, which in 1908-1912 had made such a 
 fight for the preservation of American trade and inter- 
 course across the Pacific, and the independence of 
 China, that it would look with favor upon their partic- 
 ipation in a loan to China, provided such a loan were 
 
332 THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 not made contingent upon concessions. As a matter 
 of fact, China was again trying to get the bankers to 
 pull her chestnuts out of the fire; the administration 
 was trying to get the bankers to pull its and the China 
 missionaries' and educators', and traders' and others' 
 chestnuts out of the fire. The administration wanted 
 the bankers to make the loan as a matter of patriotism, 
 as the State Department intimated. The situation was 
 apparent to everybody, unless to President Wilson 
 and the State Department, as was pointed out by the 
 bankers who, said they, in the first instance had been 
 invited by the Government to participate in loans to 
 China. President Wilson then had repudiated that 
 invitation, and the first essential was the Government's 
 revision of its act and the furnishing of some sort of 
 governmental sanction, either a new or the old, some- 
 thing that would make the bonds worth the public 
 buying. Their security must be sound — specific 
 Chinese revenues and resources, and aid of the Ameri- 
 can Government in seeing that the conditions of the 
 loan would be fulfilled. The administration's view 
 was still purely academic, and it was impossible 
 that Premier Okuma could have been unaware of the 
 situation of the American group which, in 1912, had 
 been forced by the threat of having President Wilson 
 and his administration in power, to contract with its 
 European associates for European protection for the 
 interests it had already acquired in China, and to give 
 up future opportunities until a new administration 
 more reasonable could come into power in Washington. 
 He knew that American financiers could not loan 
 money to China. 
 
 While Okuma was talking, Japan had very important 
 issues at stake. And it was not beyond the scope of 
 
BLOWS FROM JAPAN 383 
 
 his sagacity to appreciate that the diversion of public 
 attention would not do them any harm. Japan's com- 
 plete possession of the assets reported just acquired 
 from Russia in Manchuria depended upon China's 
 consent to the deal. The two pact powers could not 
 finally transfer any part of China's railways without 
 her participation. Japan still had to deal with China. 
 But Japan had no apprehensions. Okuma never hesi- 
 tated. He knew China was helpless. He knew 
 America would not come in, that our financiers and 
 traders had once done so at great expense and been 
 left to hold the bag, and that they had no mind to 
 undertake, open-eyed and unsecured, the uncertainties 
 of a contest with the Manchurian allies, of which Japan 
 was indeed high cockalorum. Premier Okuma's invi- 
 tation strongly resembled Japan's Fourth of July 
 amenities. Had it come from Baron Shibusawa, it 
 would have been expressed in the terms of an offer of 
 Chinese bonds "made in Japan", and negotiable only 
 through Japan. 
 
 It is possible that the passing generation of Japanese, 
 so distinguished for its great men, has furnished to the 
 world some of its cleverest and greatest demagogues. 
 But even Okuma appeared reluctant to face the conse- 
 quences of his work in accomplishing the new pact with 
 Russia which had been required of him. When the 
 renewal of pressure upon China set in, as a result of 
 Russia's reiteration of her part in the "predatory 
 pact", Okuma resigned. Before whose coming? Be- 
 fore the coming of ex-Minister of War General Count 
 Terauchi, under whom Korea was annexed and military 
 and police authority was extended in Manchuria. 
 Motono, who in the first instance won Russia over 
 and made possible the Japanese-Russian pact that 
 
334 THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 eliminated the United States from the vital affairs 
 of China, became Minister of Foreign Affairs. His 
 hfe as a statesman and his diplomatic and world edu- 
 cation had been acquired in Europe. He was the 
 latest, most European and modern, and most dynamic 
 Japanese diplomatic actor in the European-Asiatic 
 coalition in the Pacific. Goto, who had aided him, 
 and had built up Japan's communications, develop- 
 ment, and administration on the continent, became 
 Minister of the Interior. General Oshima, ex-Governor 
 of Liaotung and Port Arthur, who had been Terauchi's 
 lieutenant in extending military and political control 
 in Manchuria, became Minister of War, while Ter- 
 auchi's aide. General Hasagawa, succeeded his superior 
 as Governor-General of Korea. Terauchi's opponents 
 charged that his supporters were forming a war govern- 
 ment to correct the " do-nothing policy " (sic) of Okuma, 
 while Terauchi announced his program to be the 
 "strengthening of the nation's resources." 
 
 The importance of having a Pacific and foreign 
 policy in the Western Hemisphere, and of having a 
 government in the United States equal to its task in 
 foreign affairs, was immediately illustrated by these 
 events, in a dramatic way. When the Emperor of 
 Japan designated Terauchi to form a Cabinet at 
 Tokio, the owners of the Oceanic Steamship Company, 
 our only remaining trans-Pacific steamer line, decided 
 to sell out. W^ithin a month liquidation and sale were 
 authorized, and a price was fixed on the Company's 
 assets which were already under consideration by 
 foreign interests. Our situation in the Pacific, brought 
 about by a course of evident ineptitude during the 
 progress in East Asia of Japanese politics, militarism, 
 and "strengthening of the nation's resources", was 
 
BLOWS FROM JAPAN 335 
 
 that of virtually having sacrificed our last hold on our 
 hard-won Pacific steam shipping — the greatest sinew 
 of foreign commerce and the greatest auxiliary of 
 defense. We had no remnant of trans-Pacific shipping 
 service left. 
 
CHAPTER XIX 
 Back to the Guns 
 
 It was only a matter of time until Europe would 
 call our weak diplomatic bluff in East Asia, and ter- 
 minate our practice of taking an equal share of trade 
 in China without doing a corresponding share of the 
 work involved in its protection and extension. Fore- 
 seeing this, as I have shown, the American Govern- 
 ment from 1908 to 1912 took measures to set America 
 upon a proper footing in all respects as a responsible 
 power with the other nations involved, and one capable 
 of discharging its duties abroad. The administration 
 of Wilson had to purge itself and learn this all over 
 again, but after four years, or in August, 1916, in effect 
 it had to be told by the American financiers that the 
 world was practical-minded and that foreign trade 
 interests were dependent on sense and substance and 
 not on theory and nonsense. Premier Okuma's sar- 
 casms were lost upon it, and so were Japan's intensely 
 practical depredations upon American rights, property, 
 and other interests. 
 
 But on the other hand it was hardly a question of 
 time until Japan would make the most of our delin- 
 quency, for her own advantage, and against ourselves 
 and China, to say nothing of other nations. When she 
 put her hand to the plough she brought about a show- 
 
 336 
 
BACK TO THE GUNS 337 
 
 down between the nations and civilizations of oppos- 
 ing policies and principles in East Asia and the Pacific. 
 That was the situation at the close of 1916. With its 
 prospects at hand, is America going to continue chas- 
 ing illusions in foreign affairs and forming grandiose 
 plans in ignorance of essential facts, and be tamely 
 turned under in the Pacific ? Is America going to sub- 
 mit to Japan, Russia, and the outside world of distant 
 Europe, which is now expressed in terms of a military 
 and capitalistic Asiatic and Pacific confederation, led 
 by Japan, to consent to their sitting in council upon 
 the future of China and the Pacific area and have no 
 place there or only such a one as is thrown to it ? Will 
 America submit to Japan's aggrandizing leadership 
 and her marshaling the world in shaping without 
 American participation that which is the most vital 
 to it of all possible issues? 
 
 Slated with China to pay the war debts of Europe, 
 either by present resources or future commerce, trade, 
 industry, and finance, or all together, as China after 
 the Portsmouth Treaty was slated to pay the war 
 debts of Japan and Russia, is America to play the role 
 of the tame scapegoat of the Pacific ? Is it going to 
 remain kicked out of the council room of Asiatic and 
 Pacific affairs, as well as out of Pacific trade and inter- 
 course, and henceforth pay toll to a gatekeeper who 
 has set himself up on its own and the world's ancient 
 free highway to China ? With its principles and poli- 
 cies in the Pacific a direct challenge to Japan, and with 
 Europe behind Japan looming up across the Pacific, 
 is it going to back down, and hunt its hiding place 
 which never yet it has seen ? 
 
 Is it going to be satisfied to see China's self -wrought 
 future now rising in her hopes, snatched from her by a 
 
838 THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 neighbor, because that neighbor was first to find the 
 iron-clad and the machine gun, and was the one, in 
 the household of China's own civilization and orbit, 
 to rush ruthlessly upon her ? Is it desirous of continu- 
 ing to deserve the confidence and emulation of Pacific 
 nations, as Japan once thought it deserved, and China 
 still so thinks? Does it cherish the honor of being 
 "the only power able to look China in the face with- 
 out the blush of shame" ? Or is it preparing through 
 default, or mistaken policy, or criminal political cussed- 
 ness, to abandon its historical and political international 
 position in China, East Asia, and the Pacific? Is it 
 letting slip the great appointment, turning away its 
 head, while the spirit of John Hay is "but a little way" 
 above it, declaring with Okuma that China is unfit 
 and unworthy, that she does not deserve the considera- 
 tion framed by America in the treaties, and that 
 America can no longer and to its lasting good defend 
 those treaties and the principles on which they were 
 made and remade? Is it then going to capitulate to 
 international plunder, like Russia, and divide China's 
 patrimony with Japan and the predatory pack, in- 
 directly, by sanctioning and financing Japan's aggres- 
 sions ? 
 
 Will America, from administration to administra- 
 tion, tolerate the policy of drift exemplified in Root's 
 and Wilson's management of State Department affairs 
 during the vital formative period of the great Pacific 
 problem? Will it continue to permit its political 
 parties to play battledore and shuttlecock with its 
 greatest office, the State Department, and with foreign 
 affairs, as its politicians in Congress and out do in 
 words, with foreign peoples and systems? Will it be 
 satisfied to see itself pushed staggering, like a drunken 
 
BACK TO THE GUNS 339 
 
 man, along precipices which nations have raised above 
 their worst debaucheries? Is it going to continue 
 lost, diplomatically and internationally, tracking its 
 way aimlessly and fruitlessly through the wide wastes 
 between Occidental and Oriental diplomacy, finance, 
 and economics, for an avenue of escape from world 
 responsibilities, as was Russia? Has it been made 
 the present Siberian convict by Japan, in the place of 
 Russia? Is it the big, docile, half -starved, outdoor 
 animal that Russia was before her war with Japan and 
 the World War? 
 
 So far as practically accessible wealth goes, America, 
 with China, is the real and potential treasury of the 
 world, and the only source of pay to the war-starved 
 Entente or Manchurian allies, as well as to the central 
 powers. It decamped in East Asia at the first turn 
 of the predatory pack, frightened at the lingering 
 blood-marks in Manchuria and the Pacific, and the 
 coalition of the Manchurian allies under Japan — no 
 doubt of that. The voyage of discovery of its State 
 Department, begun 1908-1909, led it to Japan and 
 her program for the remaking of East Asia and the 
 Pacific. What protection has it against the execution 
 by Japan of her program through a long world war 
 alone, or its after effects? With the British colonies 
 in the Pacific handcuffed or crippled, and with Latin- 
 America unadvanced and undefended, how is it to 
 withstand alone the insatiable hunger and political 
 ambition of Japan, and of Japan backed by Europe? 
 What anchor has it to windward, among Japan's allies, 
 or others, that can help it to forestall a final Japanese 
 victory in the shape of political and then trade and 
 cultural elimination first of itself and then of other 
 Western powers from East Asia, and the expansion of 
 
340 THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 Asiatics eastward across the Pacific, as West Asians 
 expanded westward around the world, but suddenly, 
 in a thousandth of the time, with modern dispatch? 
 How can it prevent the hungry nations of Europe in- 
 ordinately helping themselves under Japan's aegis 
 at China's and America's expense, before Japan com- 
 mands China, not to say the Pacific, for herself? 
 Europe and Japan know America's weak spot — the 
 Pacific ; when and how will they again strike America 
 there? When is it fully to answer to the turn of 
 Japan which took place in Tokio when Komura arrived 
 back from Portsmouth in 1905, and there came the 
 parting of the ways? Is America ready for the limi- 
 tation of its institutions, its influence, and its destiny ? 
 Has the time come for the Great Republic to turn 
 back in its westward march, scared from its frontiers, 
 laughed out of the Pacific? 
 
 When the determination of the immediate question 
 of the future of Europe comes to conference, the fate 
 of America's interests and the future of the United 
 States in the Pacific will be determined by Japan and 
 the winners in the World War. Courland, Flanders, 
 the Dardanelles, Serbia, Bukowina, Verdun, Mesopo- 
 tamia, the North Sea, and what happened after, cast 
 their spell over the central powers in Europe, and the 
 Manchurian allies of the Pacific area. But they all 
 will come back to East Asia with their attention un- 
 divided, and there will be enough of them with Japan 
 to annul American influence in the Pacific, and be 
 upon the American back in all its questions. 
 
 At the close of the World War, Japan will be the 
 second most substantially benefited power in the world. 
 She will have profited, next to the United States, by 
 the monopoly of commerce with China and by the 
 
BACK TO THE GUNS 341 
 
 war trade, and next to none in the fruits of aggression, 
 while the demonstrated success of Prussian efficiency, 
 regardless of the final outcome in Europe, will have 
 given a new and greater popular and imperial justifica- 
 tion and defense to Japanese imperialistic statesman- 
 ship, policies, and plans. It is clear that the only 
 hope for American honor, international justice, protec- 
 tion of commerce and trade, and other American in- 
 terests in East Asia in future will be either the triumph 
 of an European-American treaty coalition over Japanese- 
 European Prussianism, or a triumph of the military 
 forces of the United States over those of Japan, and a 
 mastery in Washington in the management of foreign 
 affairs. 
 
 In 1912, when Wilson kept the United States out of 
 the way of the "steam-roller" of the Manchurian 
 allies, as it galloped around the earth, he also cut essen- 
 tial national foundations away. Had we stayed in the 
 Six-Power Loan, we would have had a most powerful 
 basis for "mediation" in the anticipated peace confer- 
 ence that is to settle in the Pacific our most important 
 affairs. Were we active, physical participants in the 
 physical and real affairs of the world, especially in the 
 Pacific, about which Okuma justly taunts us, its affairs 
 would not be in danger of being settled unknown to us, 
 as were those of China's sovereignty and the Open 
 Door in Manchuria. We would be in no danger of hav- 
 ing the lines of our future taken from our control, and 
 our fate in the Pacific laid down in secret agreements, 
 supplementary clauses, ententes, and what not, be- 
 tween the upper and the nether millstones of which 
 we would be ground during fretful years of ignorant 
 cross-purposes and blind struggles in foreign affairs. 
 Unless the United States can manage to retain what 
 
S42 THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 equality of right it has in China and increase its eco- 
 nomic foundations there by loans, diplomacy, and the 
 moral support that comes of adequate naval and other 
 military forces, so as to be prepared to render aid to 
 restore the balance in favor of the capitalistic powers, 
 she will have to go to war with Japan to break that 
 country's designs and present works. 
 
 Our responsibility in the Pacific area is something 
 we have been shunning, scuttling ; increasing the bur- 
 den of our final and inevitable task. For unless we 
 destroy our history in the Pacific area, the retrench- 
 ment we have made must have its resultant flux. The 
 question whether we must tolerate a Prussianization 
 of East Asia and the Pacific is fairly clear. The Mon- 
 roe Doctrine applies to the destiny of the Pacific half 
 of the Western Hemisphere, whose interests are bound 
 up in the future of the Pacific area. And the world's 
 connections across the Pacific, with Western civiliza- 
 tion's communications westward with Asia, have their 
 tie in the historic rights and treaties throughout East 
 Asia by which we are bound. There is no way to 
 break that tie unless we Prussianize, or Japanize. 
 American relations and enterprise in East Asia have 
 confuted all evil prophets, as I have shown. What has 
 been done by the United States in the interest of human 
 rights in the Pacific area, though not defined thus in 
 words, was a sincere and great moral effort toward the 
 end of safeguarding mankind in the Pacific area from 
 evils such as have afflicted mankind in the Atlantic 
 area. And events in the Atlantic area have eminently 
 justified those prophetic fears of our forefathers, 
 together with the promising effort hitherto made by 
 our statesmen, teachers, financiers, and traders. We 
 are in no respect called upon to deny sovereignty and 
 
BACK TO THE GUNS 343 
 
 independence to any treaty power in the Pacific, let 
 alone the master civilization of China. China is only 
 another name for treaties and rights such as are the 
 words Belgium, and Serbia, and Montenegro. 
 
 It is obvious that our only line of escape from worse 
 sacrifices, humiliations, and dishonors, is to rout Japan 
 from the position of her monstrous assumptions as the 
 monitor of China and the nations in East Asia. If, 
 after ignoring the loss of our rights in China, the present 
 American policy of drifting should continue, Japan's 
 great reason for war against us (these essentials of inter- 
 national relations are formulated long in advance) 
 would not be China. It would be that of the imposition 
 of Japanese and Asiatic colonization upon the shores of 
 the Pacific generally. Emigration, being the basis of 
 modern ocean commerce and of the great merchant 
 marine fleets and navies of Europe, is the basis of 
 future commerce and sea power on the Pacific Ocean. 
 No great steamship development on the Pacific com- 
 parable to that in the Atlantic is attainable between 
 Japan and the countries of the Pacific, for Japan, 
 without Japanese emigration. And an armed victory 
 over the United States, if obtained without too great a 
 sacrifice, would give to Japan such a prestige in the 
 Pacific that few countries would be able to resist her 
 demands for immigrant admission, whatever we our- 
 selves might do. 
 
 But to America, the Asiatic immigration issue in the 
 United States is not the Pacific war issue. That is a 
 question which both sides, in fact, recognize cannot be 
 settled by war, at least in respect to the United States. 
 California cannot settle the Pacific question or have 
 any appreciable effect upon it. Scuttling and the 
 assertion of a sacrifice of our principles respecting 
 
344 THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 treaties, rights, and possessions, and of our ships, for 
 the trade across the Pacific with Japan, will not settle 
 it. Whether the United States keeps out of East Asia 
 or not, Japan and the United States will not get along. 
 The only way for the United States to get along is to 
 face Japan as forcibly, if not as defiantly, as Japan 
 faces them, ever present in all the Pacific area's im- 
 portant affairs, and ever alert. The United States 
 cannot keep on writing treaties in the Pacific and see- 
 ing them broken. They would be a coolie power. 
 Their own safety, as well as honor and other interests, 
 depend upon the reestablishment of respect for treaties 
 in East Asia, and the inviolability of long-established 
 and prior rights. The great question between Japan 
 and the United States is not the Japanese- American 
 treaty ; it is that of half a hundred treaties and agree- 
 ments in China and East Asia. 
 
 After our experience in the making of the Pacific, 
 there is one outstanding important finding : We are 
 not understood by the Japanese as we understand our- 
 selves, and there is no possibility of an amicable 
 understanding through the methods employed in the 
 past. We overestimated our influence and the im- 
 portance of our civilization and institutions in the 
 opening of Japan, just as we overplayed our role with 
 her in China. Most of our acts in the Pacific as well 
 as East Asia are challenged by Japan, who has more 
 than surpassed us in the use of force, which she has 
 used for aggression, has exceeded all powers, wherever 
 she has come into conflict with any people, and has 
 assumed the position of arbiter. 
 
 Perhaps none have done so much toward combating 
 prejudice and blame which has been accumulating in 
 the world against Japan as have Americans. Criticism 
 
BACK TO THE GUNS 345 
 
 from them, therefore, is not premature when it is said 
 that on the other hand the Japanese, both the people 
 and the rulers, have been misled by the free and un- 
 qualified appreciation that accompanied Japan's first 
 impression made upon America about 1876 — a whole- 
 heartedness probably largely the reaction from a cen- 
 tury of prejudice against and distrust of Europe. The 
 American people always have held China in esteem, 
 and as time multiplied her distractions, in sympathy. 
 These it also turned to Japan, one of its nearest western 
 neighbors. But Japan is now faced with what is per- 
 fectly plain to her, the equivalent reaction, for which 
 she is sagaciously prepared. It is everywhere known 
 that the Japanese people have been educated to believe 
 in imminent war with the United States. It has been 
 explained by Japan's American apologists that troops 
 embarked from the Inland Sea in 1914 to take Ger- 
 many's Shantung colony, Kiaochou, understood they 
 were embarking against the United States. 
 
 Japan has comprehended the West only too well, 
 in most of its ways. Her political second sight and 
 her prophetic vision are more acute than ours. But 
 there is one thing in connection with her relations with 
 America she did not get hold of, she did not grasp 
 — the handle of Anglo-Saxon right and wrong, a sense 
 that is the chief heritage of the great mass of the peo- 
 ple inhabiting the American continent. But she has 
 deliberately determined that equation to be negligible, 
 as is shown by the policy of empire upon which she has 
 embarked since Komura's return from Portsmouth; 
 and the fact that this is the greatest single piece of 
 evidence of the conflict to be waged across the Pacific, 
 has given the world for ten years the engrossing specu- 
 lation whether Japan is "going to get away with it." 
 
346 THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 Japan is Jesuitical, leveling everything to attain 
 progress toward her far-flung ultimate end. The world 
 is pretty well assured now that the moral sense of 
 Japan is totally different from that of the Anglo-Saxon 
 countries, or that it is still a fluid and indefinite body. 
 That accounts for Japan out-distancing us in the 
 political game in the Pacific, to be sparing of our 
 vanity. It took arms to do it, and arms is what it 
 takes to oppose it. Japan's policies are such, both 
 political, — in her foreign relations and domestic, — 
 in her ethical teachings and education of her people to 
 their peculiar blind patriotic duties to the sovereign, 
 that we could not but be obliged to inculcate among 
 coming and present Americans the principle of war 
 with Japan. 
 
 Lest I do an injustice to the people of Japan, I take 
 occasion to make clear those of whom I speak. There 
 is little less conspiracy in determining the national 
 affairs in Japan than there was only a few decades 
 ago, when royalty was a shell game in which one now 
 saw the "emperor", and now he didn't. Imperial 
 power still is a superstition, and the people generally 
 are not in a position to know, and certainly seldom 
 understand. Their only connection with it is as 
 economic and military units and as estimable human 
 beings, faultless in their hospitality and manners 
 toward strangers. I speak of Nippon and the Japanese 
 who conduct her international affairs or contribute 
 to the conduct of them. Japan has changed our rela- 
 tion to her, and we are obliged to act correspondingly. 
 Under the expansion and aggrandizing policy of her 
 empire builders, Japan is a world ogre, as shown 
 throughout every civilized land east and west. She 
 is the last country on the globe, save perhaps Prussia, 
 
BACK TO THE GUNS 347 
 
 to seek empire by the subjugation of not only other, 
 but great civilized States, and the exploitation of their 
 resources for her individual benefit to the detriment 
 and exclusion of others who are her predecessors, or 
 associates, and even allies. The efforts of her leaders 
 to deny these facts are a laughing stock in the world's 
 press, and she is not only distrusted in all the great 
 state chancelleries of the world but, in the State 
 Department at Washington, which has made a four 
 years' struggle under a great visionary impulse and 
 illusion to see Japan's side, confidence in 1916 was 
 more than extinct. America needed a great modern 
 Townsend Harris to deal with Japan. 
 
 After the time of Komura's arrival in Tokio from 
 Portsmouth, in fact from the time of Ito's death, there 
 began that hostility between Japan and the United 
 States which leads to conflict. Those events quickly 
 introduced the great conflict as prophesied, and the 
 full complications for us, of Japan and Europe in the 
 Pacific. Since then four important things have existed. 
 The people generally, from the lowest to the highest, 
 of both nations, have been mentally prepared for war. 
 The peoples of neither country have been mentally, 
 or intellectually, prepared for any ultimate solution 
 otherwise of their problem. Militarily, Japan is 
 splendidly prepared for a solution by war at any time, 
 and — The United States are unprepared in every 
 direction, except apprehensively, for a solution by war. 
 
 With Ito's death, that demise of friendship between 
 Japanese and Americans set in which such efforts have 
 been made, by peace advocates and exchange profes- 
 sors, and other devices, to stay. If there is any event 
 from which the final break with Japan may be dated, 
 it might be that when Secretary Bryan said to Am- 
 
348 THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 bassador Chinda: "There is no last word between 
 friends." It was the sign that we had nothing more 
 in us for Japan but talk, and she could begin with the 
 whip, at her leisure. That might be said to have cut 
 the Gordian knot that bound the two civilizations 
 across the Pacific in friendship by the tie of humanity. 
 Japan changed her ambassadors at Washington, made 
 her new pact with Russia, and her renewed demands 
 upon China. We were confronted in the Pacific with 
 the " white man's burden " — the burden of our de- 
 mocracy, our treaties, and of the Asiatic taskmaster, 
 until we could show Japan that she wielded the whip 
 at her peril. 
 
 All evidences show that the new Japanese-Russian 
 pact is the same old political conspiracy of Japan, but 
 with the added complication of Russian divided in- 
 terests due to the World War, and that after the World 
 War which gave the pact its raison d'etre is over, some 
 great issue like the close control and exploitation of 
 China and the Pacific with the extinction of all Ameri- 
 can political, and if possible, cultural influence, the 
 appropriation of China's natural resources for exhaus- 
 tive exploitation, and monopolizing of China's indus- 
 trial development, close control of finance and govern- 
 ment in China, and levying upon American intercourse 
 and trade in the Pacific, with the pressure of Asiatic 
 emigration turned to the Western Hemisphere, must 
 exist to maintain it. Otherwise it will dissolve. And 
 that is what Japan is preparing against. She is obliged 
 to retain the leadership. If she does not, she will lose 
 what she has sprung upon since August 1, 1914. Her 
 hopes in this are partly justified by the declarations of 
 her allies. Russia, in the words of Sazonoff, when the 
 pact was a Jait accompli, relied upon her "solidarity 
 
BACK TO THE GUNS 349 
 
 with Japan." Her interests were in Japan's hands — 
 she need not worry. Also: "As interpreted in Great 
 Britain and France," said the Osaka Asahi, "the new 
 compact was devised by Russia and Japan to protect 
 their immense interests in China." And threw this 
 sop to their aUies, namely: "It is a strong reply to 
 repeated German overtures for separate peace." 
 
 The future of the Manchurian alliance of Europe 
 and Asia, on the continent of Asia and in the Pacific, 
 as mirrored in the latest pact to which the Asahi re- 
 ferred, was further expressed by the London Daily 
 Chronicle: "Germany will see in the latest alliance a 
 fresh obstacle in the way of her return to the Far 
 East." We were shut out before Japan — backed by 
 Great Britain, Russia, and France — excluded Germany. 
 Alliances are transitory, but they last long enough to 
 attain the objects that compel them in the beginning, 
 and long enough is too long for the interests which they 
 overcome. 
 
 The predatory alliance cemented by the Japanese- 
 Russian pacts then, when the World War motives 
 governing the European allies in it are gone, will be 
 the pact of unshackled and no longer distracted Europe, 
 and of Japanese Asia, in the Pacific, upon our right 
 flank. With its written determination, fixed as it will 
 be, solely upon these enterprises by which to recoup 
 after the World War, the life and eflSciency of that 
 confederation, now measured in the world by the gains 
 reclaimed from other packs, will be measured in the 
 Pacific by gains expressed from others' rights and pos- 
 sessions — the potentially and actually rich, and 
 defensively helpless Chinese and Americans. 
 
 Having been shown in the Atlantic and the Pacific, 
 in the Antarctic and in the Indian oceans, and in all 
 
350 THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 the great continents, that war still exists in the world, fl| 
 Americans essentially must think upon war in the 
 Pacific. When they consider the understanding on 
 these great and vital issues to be desired with a great 
 alien civilization whose guise Japan presumes to wear, 
 and that in her they face purposes and determinations 
 opposing their own, it is clear that the force which 
 Russia looked for from us in her struggle against Japan 
 after the Russian-Japanese War, and that which also 
 England and others have looked for in vain, we are 
 now impelled to manifest. 
 
 Many have guessed at the future in the Pacific 
 when begins the conflict of Japan and the United States 
 over the rights and principles of international right and 
 free international intercourse. Japan's summons to us 
 to get out of East Asia had at last an answer in Con- 
 gress from armament legislation, when the national 
 spokesman, Mr. Sherley, when introducing the Forti- 
 fications Bill in June, 1916, said that the people of 
 the United States "are demanding that Congress shall 
 see to it that this country is put in a position properly 
 to maintain its rights no matter where, when, or by 
 whom they may be assailed." International law was a 
 shred. There was little left to us abroad anywhere, 
 except our poorly equipped and stocked outlying for- 
 tifications. We reached an appreciation of that fact 
 in the increase then made in our Pacific armament. 
 The vast area of the Pacific had attained a strategic 
 importance greater than at any time in the world's 
 history, armed for some great struggle. Gibraltar had 
 been imitated during the years, in Hongkong, at Shi- 
 monoseki, Port Arthur, Vladivostok, and half a dozen 
 other places. For us Corregidor, Olongapo and Manila 
 Bay, Pearl Harbor and Diamond Head, had been 
 
BACK TO THE GUNS 351 
 
 created, but otherwise we were back to the guns in our 
 hands. There was httle else. The fighting ground 
 of the Pacific for the United States had shifted from 
 China to their insular possessions and to California, 
 and Americans were confronted with the immediate 
 necessity of making a last stand in the open ocean. 
 
 With the World War, the alien races and civiliza- 
 tions in the Pacific were finally at each other ; Japan, 
 the chief determining factor, was the leader of the pred- 
 atory pack, and had shown her aspirations to attain 
 to the understanding that comes of needy strife and 
 struggle. She had no misgivings and no fear of the 
 sword. She had demonstrated its efficiency in inter- 
 nal and external disputations and conflicts. 
 
 Mutual understanding in East Asia in the past, in 
 all important matters, has been arrived at only by war. 
 This has been true of China and the powers, of Russia 
 and Japan, and of Japan and Korea. Will it be true 
 of Japan and China, Japan and Germany, Japan and 
 the United States, and Japan and the world, are ques- 
 tions left only to war to answer, for war has already 
 undertaken them. 
 
 A conclusion respecting this great subject of the 
 Pacific is automatically shaped by self-evident cir- 
 cumstances set forth in the preceding pages. The 
 essential facts which I have attempted to show with 
 approximate completeness make clear that Japan, in 
 addition to meeting the West in many points fairly, 
 has used conspiracy, intimidation, and force to take 
 from the nations generally extensive rights in East 
 Asia. She has first broken and then destroyed finally the 
 original concert of the Open Door for the maintenance 
 of China's territorial and administrative integrity and 
 sovereignty which America had laboriously built up. 
 
352 THE MENACE OF JAPAN 
 
 She has threatened the foundations of all foreign rela- 
 tions in East Asia established by treaties covering 
 more than seventy years, in order to step between the 
 powers and other East Asian nations, and by forcible 
 dictation control all foreign trade, material resources, 
 and political and commercial intercourse. She has 
 set up a position in violent moral conflict with the 
 principles of peace and humanity that are the basis 
 of the treaties, which strikes at America's commercial 
 and cultural mission of one hundred and thirty years 
 in East Asia, the spirit of its people, and of Western 
 civilization. For her own purposes she sets adrift in 
 the international ocean the vast Chinese branch of the 
 human race, whose welfare and destiny are bound up 
 with our own and that of all nations and peoples in 
 the Pacific area, and is bringing on a conflict of the 
 two civilizations. 
 
 The United States, by the World War, were more 
 intimately faced with the problem of the Pacific, 
 namely, whether or not they were to become a coolie 
 power, perhaps outranking China and Korea, but not 
 outranking Portugal or Mexico in foreign influence in 
 East Asia. The terrific moral conflict existing in the 
 two viewpoints, the impossibility of a solution on the 
 basis of accepting the view demanded by Japan, which 
 is that constructed by Komura on the lines of confisca- 
 tion of Korean, Chinese, and foreign rights in East 
 Asia, the Japanese Government's haste to expand and 
 conquer at the expense of other nations, and its insensi- 
 bility to international right and morality, together with 
 its implied and expressed summons to us to get out of 
 East Asia, seemed to need nothing more by way of defi- 
 nition of open warfare which those calling themselves 
 by the name of men are obliged to answer with war. 
 
BACK TO THE GUNS 353 
 
 Japan has made herself ready, and would probably 
 accept that challenge. If we were determined not to 
 be driven like dumb coolies to the fate of the Pacific, 
 to dispute with every means in our power the expulsion 
 from treaty countries in East Asia, by Japan and her 
 predatory pack, of Western influences, and their regu- 
 lation through Tokio, as I have pointed out, and would 
 back up our determination with all our reserve force, 
 a possibility for reckoning up the score in the Pacific 
 by the light of understanding and mutual respect that 
 comes from war would be presented that Japan would 
 respect, if she did not welcome. And in this practical 
 and logical means to an essential end, the Asiatic prob- 
 lem, if we were successful, would be settled for a long 
 time. 
 
 The sword, which Providence and Wisdom' commend 
 to China, they also commend to America. 
 
INDEX 
 
 Aigun, 104 
 
 Alameda, The, 258, 259 
 
 Alaska, 251, 253; sale to America, 
 27, 32 
 
 Alexander, 280 
 
 Alexeieff, Admiral, 29 
 
 Amano, Professor, 38 
 
 America, see United States 
 
 America, The, 252, 253, 261 
 
 American neutralization proposal, 
 103, 112-121, 128, 130-131, 143, 
 164, 170, 174-175, 179, 180-184, 
 186, 200, 207, 240, 241, 289 
 
 American-Russian Company on 
 Siberian coast, 148 
 
 American Steam Navigation Com- 
 pany, 255, 257 
 
 Amoy, 261 
 
 Amur Railway, 151, 152, 153, 162 
 
 Amur River, 52, 105, 147, 151, 160, 
 178 
 
 Anglo-Japanese alliance, 94, 146, 
 149, 183, 189, 203, 325 
 
 Aoki, Viscount (Japanese Ambassa- 
 dor), 53; quoted, 114, 230; 
 recalled, 174 
 
 Archimandrite Mission (Peking), 
 173 
 
 Ariel, The, 254 
 
 Article VI (Russian-Chinese con- 
 tract, 1896), 48, 154-155, 157, 
 158, 159, 160, 162, 163. 169, 176, 
 177, 178, 185, 208, 241; pro- 
 visions of, 176 ; quoted, 48 
 
 Asahi Shimbun, The (Osaka), 273; 
 quoted, 270-272, 349 
 
 Asia, 7, 8, 9, 18, 27, 136, 227, 237, 265 
 
 Asiatic question, 53, 54, 73, 148 
 
 Aspinwall, William H., 251, 264 
 
 Associated Press, at Peking, 204; 
 
 at Portsmouth, 29, 30-35, 37; 
 
 in London, 19 ; in Tokio, 204 
 Atlantic, The, 4, 5, 6, 20, 57, 197, 
 
 203, 265, 310 ; conditions in, 318, 
 
 319, 320, 342, 343 
 Australia, The, 257 
 Austria, 14, 208, 318; army in 
 
 Chihh, 10, 13 
 A. H. Badger, The, 256 
 
 Bailloud, General, 11, 12 
 
 Balclutha, The, 255 
 
 Balkans, The, 90 
 
 Baltic, The, 226, 234 
 
 Baring Brothers, London, 25-26 
 
 Barrier Forts, 285 
 
 Belgium, 80, 177, 228, 318 
 
 Belloc, Hilaire, 19 
 
 Bering Strait, 147 
 
 Berlin, 18, 71, 78, 79, 119, 181 
 
 Bethmann-HoUweg, Doctor Von 
 (German Chancellor), 66 
 
 Bismarck, 145 
 
 Bland, J. O. P., 119 
 
 Board of Revenue Bank (China), 
 124; collapse of, 127 
 
 Bonin Islands, 275, 277 
 
 Boston Steamship Company, 259 
 
 Bourse Gazette, The (St. Petersburg), 
 323 
 
 Boxer indemnity, 112, 223; remis- 
 sion of, 82, 95, 97, 124, 142; ex- 
 penditure of, 95-96 
 
 Boxer Uprising, 22, 123, 223, 295; 
 in South Chihli, 10 
 
 Brinkley, Captain, 38; quoted, 177 
 
 British Australasian colonies, 53, 54, 
 339 
 
 355 
 
356 
 
 INDEX 
 
 British-Russian, Scott-Muravieff 
 
 agreement. Note, 89 
 Bryan, William J. ,197, 310, 311, 331, 
 
 347; quoted, 194; resigned, 5 
 Bryn Mawr College, 308 
 Bukowina, 340 
 Bulgar army, 13 
 Burlingame, Anson (American 
 
 Minister to China), 143, 253 
 Biu-lingame Treaty, 222 
 Burma, 276 
 Bussche-Haddenhausen, Baron von 
 
 dem, 31-35 
 
 Calhoun, John C , 194 
 
 Calhoun, William J. (successor to 
 Minister Rockhill), 130, 136, 137 
 
 California, 27, 251, 262, 317, 343; 
 future fighting ground, 351 ; 
 Japanese school question in, 49, 
 50, 53, 98 
 
 California, The, 251 
 
 Campbell, Mr. (agent Pacific Mail 
 Steamship Company), 267 
 
 Canton, 40, 134, 221, 295 
 
 Canton Period ( 1844), 22, 23, 
 
 267 
 
 Cape of Good Hope, 263 
 
 Capitalistic allies (Great Britain, 
 France, Germany, United States), 
 in currency loan, 129, 131, 132, 
 136, 138, 139, 140-141, 142; 
 Japan and Russia admitted to 
 alliance, 190; joint advisership 
 in China, 134 ; neutral adviser- 
 ship in China, 142 
 
 Carpathians, The, 234 
 
 Casenave, M. (Minister Plenipo- 
 tentiary of France), 67 
 
 Celestial Empire, The, 252 
 
 Central China, included under China 
 
 Chamberlain, Senator, quoted, 8 
 
 Chang Chih-tung (Viceroy at 
 Wuchang), 62, 68, 76, 78, 83, 85, 
 172, 329 ; quoted, 76 
 
 Chang Yin-Tang (Chinese Minister 
 at Washington), 129 
 
 Charlemagne, 280 
 
 Chemulpo, 238 
 
 Chen Chin-Tao, 129 
 
 Chiang-chun (at Kuanchengtzu), 
 45, 167, 176 
 
 Chicago, Illinois, 29 
 
 Chicago Daily News, The, 204 
 
 Chicago Herald, The, 204 
 
 Chientao region, 56 
 
 Chihli, 9, 149; cleared of Chinese 
 troops, 10, 11; divided, 10; 
 Japanese expansion into, 231; 
 punitive expeditions in, 11-13 
 
 Chihli, GuK of, 14, 20, 52, 54, 104 
 
 China, 25, 54, 64, 148, 167, 170, 259, 
 278, 280, 291, 317, 321, 323, 327, 
 343, 351, 352, 353; agreement 
 with Germany, 65; appeal to 
 England, 52; appeal to powers, 
 169 ; Article VI, 48, 154-155, 157, 
 158, 159, 160, 162, 163, 169, 176, 
 177, 178, 185 ; attempt to devise 
 a budget, 126 ; Board of Revenue 
 Bank, 124, 127; brought into 
 diplomatic relation with world, 
 146 ; case against, 292-301 ; Cen- 
 tral China, 57, 88; Ching- 
 Komura convention (Peking), 91- 
 92, 176, 224; controversy over 
 Hsin-min-tun Railway, 91-94, 
 103, 106, 109; crisis in finance, 
 61-62, 64; crucial year, 216-217; 
 currency loan controversy, 130- 
 143, 187; currency reform, 122- 
 125, 126, 127, 128, 130, 140, 141; 
 debt to Europe, 123, 125 ; descrip- 
 tion of (Doctor Martin's), 292; 
 development of, 195; difficult 
 bargainer, 107-108; disillusioned, 
 103 ; effort to build Manchiu"ian 
 railways, 91-121, 128; Emperor 
 of, 102; Empress-Dowager, 102, 
 124, 127; European compact 
 with, 67; extraterritoriality in, 
 196, 215, 221, 222, 223, 224; 
 fate of, 237; fight with money 
 powers of Europe, 124; financial 
 situation, 122-143; "financial 
 spheres", 125 ; Forbidden City, 
 The, 85, 128 ; foreign financial ad- 
 viser, 126, 130-140, 142; 
 
INDEX 
 
 857 
 
 China — (continued) 
 
 Foreign Office, 329, 330 ; foreign 
 policy, 91, 94, 95, 98-102, 112, 
 116, 121 ; foreign intervention 
 in finances, 129, 130-143, 197; 
 foreign trade, 243-249; Great 
 Wall, 9, 10, 11, 106, 197, 209; 
 Hankow-Szechuan Railway, 65- 
 66, 68; helplessness of, 333; 
 Hukuang loan afiFair, 66-86 ; his- 
 tory of money in, 141 ; increase of 
 custom rates, 126; loans to, 59, 
 60, 61, 63, 65, 66, 68, 69, 71, 104, 
 105, 106, 108, 124, 129-141, 190. 
 199, 248, 331-332; monarchical 
 system in, 188 ; moral welfare of, 
 194-195 ; most ambitious enter- 
 prise, 108-109; "National Debt 
 Association", 125 ; National As- 
 sembly, 139, 140; needs of, 88, 
 197, 199; North China, 13, 173; 
 offer to purchase Manchurian 
 railways, 112, 160; opens Man- 
 churian rivers, 160; omnibus 
 protocol, 223; politics of, 295, 
 297-298; present and future 
 position of, 309, 337-353; "Pres- 
 ervation of Peace Society", 302; 
 problems of, 91, 93, 195 ; protest 
 to, 164 ; railway concessions, 59, 
 60; recent government, 301-306, 
 307; 
 
 Relations with Japan : agree- 
 ments with, 48, 91, 92; alarmed 
 by, 49; controlled by 208, 232, 
 237; boycotts Japan, 216; con- 
 flict with Japanese troops, 329; 
 demands of Japan, 204, 209-210, 
 211-215, 218, 219, 226, 227, 228, 
 232, 233, 234, 235, 236; division 
 planned by Japan, 232-233 ; post- 
 bellum relations, 91, 301 ; sover- 
 eignty destroyed, 341, 351 ; inter- 
 ference of Japan, 311, 312, 336; 
 
 Relations with United 
 States, 4, 7, 22, 55, 58, 60, 62, 
 64, 65, 67, 68, 86, 98, 128, 194- 
 195, 196, 198, 221-225, 242-249, 
 270, 273, 274, 275, 276, 310-311, 
 
 China — (continued) 
 
 318. 319, 325, 333, 336; Ameri- 
 can capital in, 325, 331 ; agree- 
 ment with Mr. Straight, 52; 
 appeal for money, 52, 82, 94, 95, 
 124, 129-130, 135, 331; attitude 
 towards American Steamship 
 Company, 260-261 ; Boxer indem- 
 nity, 95-96, 223; first embassy 
 to America, 253; Ito-Harriman 
 agreement, see Ito-Harriman 
 agreement ; missionary commis- 
 sions to America, 197; mission- 
 aries in China, 196, 311 ; loans 
 to China, 61, 65, 66-70, 79, 130- 
 143, 147, 187-189, 199, 331, 332; 
 only friend to America, 7, 55 ; 
 physical footing in China, 145, 
 163, 223, 275, 326, 342; right-of- 
 aid agreement, 61, 67, 68, 69, 71 ; 
 Religion of, 293-295 ; republic in, 
 191, 303, 304, 305, 306; revolu- 
 tion in, 187-189, 190-191, 216; 
 revolutionary and reform agita- 
 tors, 139, 140 ; right-of-aid agree- 
 ments, 61, 65, 67, 68, 69, 71, 81 ; 
 Siege of the Legations, 9, 67; 
 secret agreement with Russia, 43, 
 78, 154, 176; special rights in, 
 151, 185, 198, 241, 313; spheres 
 of influence in, 58, 59, 145 ; stamp 
 tax, 124, 126-127, 133; struggles 
 of, 159, 216, 217; throne, 11, 12, 
 117, 216; treaties, 90, 196-197, 
 198, 221-222, 223-224, 291, 344; 
 visitors to, 173, 175; wealth, 6, 
 328, 339 ; World War issue, 6 
 
 China, The, 253, 266 
 
 China-Japan War, 297 
 
 China Sea, 1 
 
 Chinda (Japanese Ambassador to 
 America), 311, 348 
 
 Chinese proverb, 76 
 
 Chinese Railway (present), 10 
 
 Ching, Prince, 91 
 
 Ching-Komura Convention (Pe- 
 king), 91-92, 176, 224 
 
 Chun, Prince (Regent of China), 78, 
 84, 85, 88, 125, 128, 129 
 
358 
 
 INDEX 
 
 City of Melbourne, The, 255, 257 
 City of New York, The, 257 
 City of San Francisco, The, 257 
 City of Sydney, The, 257 
 Civil War (America), 201, 267 
 Clay, Henry, 202 
 Cleveland, President, 2S9 
 Colima, The, 257 
 Collins, Perry McD., 147 
 Colorado, The, 252 
 Colorado River, 265 
 Columbia, The, 252 
 Columbia River, 252, 261 
 Columbia University, New York, 92 
 Constantinople, 63, 73 
 Cordes, Herr (Peking), 62, 67 
 Corning, Captain, 254 
 Corregidor, 350 
 Costa Rica, The, 252 
 Courland, 340 
 
 Cramp's shipbuilding yards, Phila- 
 delphia, 258 
 Creasy, Sir Edward S., prophecy of, 
 
 144, 146, 147 
 Cromer, Lord, 190 
 Culebra, 3 
 Currency loan agreement, 147, 187, 
 
 190, 199, 248, 249, 270, 273; 
 
 application of, 136, 139, 141, 143; 
 
 becomes Six-Power Loan, 191 ; 
 
 history of, 129-143; Japan and 
 
 Russia admitted, 190 
 Cyphrenes, The, 257 
 Czar, The, 173 
 
 Dacotah, The, 255, 256 
 
 Dairen, 330 
 
 Dakota, The, 259 
 
 Dalny (Tairen), 44 
 
 Dardanelles, The, 340 
 
 Dennison, WilUiam Henry (Ameri- 
 can adviser to Japan), 207, 217, 
 230; at Portsmouth, 29; works 
 in Japan, 205, 210 
 
 De Plancon, Mons., 29 
 
 Dernburg, Doctor, 174 
 
 Diamond Head, 350 
 
 Dickinson, J. M. (ex-Secretary of 
 War), 175 
 
 Dillon, Doctor E. J. {Morning 
 Telegraph), 29 
 
 District of Columbia, See Washing- 
 ton 
 
 Dollar, Robert, 259 
 
 Dollar Company, 266 
 
 Dukla Pass, 226, 235, 236 
 
 Dunkirk, 226 
 
 Dutch Indies, 244 
 
 East Asia, 5, 8, 20, 21, 68, 89, 105, 
 275, 280, 281, 282, 284, 285, 286, 
 289, 291, 298, 301, 312, 313, 314, 
 315, 321, 328 ; advancement of,24 ; 
 America in, 22, 23, 26, 27, 28, 40, 
 54, 55, 58, 64, 66, 73, 77, 89, 91, 
 112, 121, 132, 168, 186, 187, 193, 
 195, 197, 220, 225, 226, 229, 237, 
 248, 266, 270, 272, 274, 281, 282, 
 285, 286, 313, 317, 319, 337-341 ; 
 diplomatic event of 1909-1910, 
 66; economic situation in, 153; 
 foreign interests in, 201, 241; 
 Japan in, 5, 6, 14, 22, 188, 206, 
 208, 220, 226, 229, 231, 232, 237, 
 272, 274, 276, 281, 282, 289, 334, 
 337; Manchiu-ian allies in, 233, 
 234, 236, 340; mutual under- 
 standings in, 351 ; political future 
 of, 60, 233; tragedy of, 166-167; 
 present and future conditions in, 
 353; Prussianized, 342; puni- 
 tive expeditions in, 11, 20 ; scourg- 
 ing of, 13; steamships to, 251- 
 253, 259-269; readjustment of 
 relations in, 237 
 
 Eastern Manchuria, See Manchuria 
 
 Ecuador, The, 268 
 
 Edward, King, 36; quoted, 26 
 
 Egypt, 190, 278 
 
 Elder Statesmen of Japan, 234-235, 
 236 
 
 Eldridge, Oliver, 252 
 
 England, See Great Britain 
 
 "Englishman's Home, An" (by 
 Captain DuMaurier), 18, 63 
 
 English Peninsula and Oriental 
 Steamship Company, 255 
 
INDEX 
 
 359 
 
 Europe, 18, 54, 87, 97, 109, 127, 136, 
 233, 237, 315, 318, 321. 336, 337, 
 340, 345, 347, 349 ; Asian diplo- 
 macy in, 145 ; attitude towards 
 neutralization proposal, 180 ; fate 
 discussed, 14 ; financiers, 59-85, 
 115, 123, 126, 131, 138, 201 ; fu- 
 ture, 340; money in China, 243, 
 248, 249 ; position in East Asia, 
 73, 272; remodeled, 7, 8, 20, 273, 
 275 ; resilience of, 20 ; retaliation 
 on Asia, 8-9, 16 ; states of, 20-21 ; 
 war debts of, 337 
 
 European-Asian alliance, 144, 334 
 
 European Powers (France, Germany, 
 Great Britain), 89; attempt to 
 control China's credit, 62, 64, 66 ; 
 competition in China, 125 ; finan- 
 cial spheres, 125; handling of 
 Hukuang loan, 66-88; in East 
 Asia, 73, 272 ; loan policy of, 198 ; 
 "spheres of influence", 59; Tien- 
 tsin-Pukow loan, 59, 61, 70 
 
 European War, 3, 9, 14, 54, 65, 79, 
 124, 226, 228, 237, 250, 259, 272, 
 281, 299, 317, 318, 319, 323, 339, 
 340, 348, 351, 352; beginning of, 
 19-20, 203, 235, 242 ; duration of, 
 20, 210, 233; instigator of, 70; 
 lessons of, 5 ; motives of, 349 ; 
 munition troubles of, 328 ; prep- 
 arations for, 6, 13, 15, 16-20, 208; 
 press system of, 14, 19, 20 
 
 Extraterritoriality, principle of, 196, 
 215, 222, 223, 231, 274 ; qualities 
 of, 221 
 
 Fairfield Shipbuilding Company 
 
 (Glasgow), 257 
 Fa-ku-men, 93 
 Fillmore, President, 202 
 First National Bank (New York), 69 
 Fisher, Fred (American Consul at 
 
 Harbin), 51, 52, 54 
 Fiske, Admiral, 5 
 Flanders, 340 
 Fletcher, Henry P. (Secretary at 
 
 Peking), 67, 70, 74, 76, 84, 86, 118, 
 
 175 ; quoted, 72, 83 
 
 Forbes, P. S., 256 
 
 Forbidden City, The, 85, 128 
 
 Formosa, 239, 275 
 
 Fortifications Bill, 350 
 
 France, 62, 67, 70, 79, "82, 89, 91, 
 109, 110, 111, 113, 210, 232, 308, 
 315, 316; agreement with Great 
 Britain, freed from, 120; ally of 
 Russia, 173; agreement to Open 
 Door doctrine, 223; 
 
 Attitude in currency loan af- 
 fair, 135, 139; on Article VI, 
 160 ; on Hukuang loan affair, 66- 
 88; on neutralization proposal, 
 173, 182; 
 
 Expectation of war, 16; in For- 
 mosa, 275; in the Pacific, 277; 
 last chance of, 16; legation at 
 Peking, 75, 82; loan to China, 
 59, 60, 61; plan of defense, 14- 
 15; right-of-aid agreement, 65; 
 "spheres of influence", 58, 120; 
 trade in China, 245; troops dis- 
 cussed, 13 
 
 Franco-Russian alliance, 16, 189, 224 
 
 Fremont, John Charles, 252 
 
 Fuchou, coaling station at, 277 
 
 Fujiwaras dynasty, 279 
 
 Fujiyama, 252, 300, 306 
 
 Fukien Province, 234 
 
 Fukui (Managing Director Mitsu 
 Products Company), quoted, 228- 
 229 
 
 Fushimi, Prince, 173 
 
 Gallio, 292 
 
 Garrison, Lindley M. (Secretary of 
 War), 5 
 
 Genghis Khan, 10 
 
 Germany, 5, 8, 62, 66, 67, 70, 78, 79, 
 82, 89, 109, 113, 173, 208, 244, 
 278, 281, 283, 310, 315, 316, 318, 
 319, 349, 351; agreement to 
 Open Door doctrine, 223; army 
 in China, 8, 9, 10, 11-12, 13, 15; 
 attitude on neutralization pro- 
 posal, 181 ; challenge to England, 
 62, 63, 64, 65 ; confidence of , 16 ; de- 
 signs upon civilization, 17 ; diplom- 
 
360 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Germany — (continued) 
 
 acy in Europe, 327; eliminated 
 from China, 236; feeling against 
 England, 14, 61 ; Hukuang loan 
 affair, 66-88 ; legation at Peking, 
 75, 182; Liege a Waterloo, 19; 
 loans to China, 59, 60, 61, 62; 
 military system, 16, 17, 18; re- 
 allotment of territory, 16-17; 
 right-of-aid agreement with China, 
 65; "spheres of influence", 58, 
 59, 64; spy scares, 18; war cor- 
 respondents, 18 
 
 Gerngros, General, 173 
 
 Gibraltar, 350 
 
 Golden Age, The, 252, 254 
 
 Gonsuke Hayashi (Japanese Minis- 
 ter in Peking), 173, 329 
 
 Goodnow, Frank J., 302 
 
 Goto, Baron (Minister of Com- 
 munications, Japan), 114, 159, 
 334 
 
 Gould family, 264 
 
 Grant, General, 238, 253 
 
 Gray, Captain Alfred G., 252 
 
 Gray, Captain Robert, 252 
 
 Great Britain, 62, 70, 82, 89, 91, 98, 
 102, 109, 110, 111, 113, 145, 146, 
 189, 232, 239, 244, 350; agree- 
 ment to Open Door doctrine, 223 ; 
 ally of Japan, 24, 26, 49, 52, 81, 89, 
 93, 103, 180, 183, 207, 239; anger 
 at Japan, 234; 
 
 Attitude in currency loan af- 
 fair, 139, 190; on Hsin-min-tun 
 Railway scheme, 93-94; on Hu- 
 kuang loan affair, 66-88; on 
 neutralization proposal, 180, 182, 
 183,186; 
 
 Foreign office, 84 ; " German War " 
 scares in, 18, 63 ; importance in 
 East Asia, 24 ; infidelity to Open 
 Door pledge, 187 ; in Formosa, 
 275 ; in the Pacific, 277 ; legation 
 at Peking, 75, 82, 84, 93 ; loans to 
 China, 59, 60, 61, 62; losses at 
 Neuve Chapelle, 234; negotia- 
 tions for Hankow-Szechuan line, 
 65, 66; offers adviser to China, 
 
 Great Britain — (continued) 
 
 126; premier aid agreement, 62, 
 75; press, 94, 115, 234; repudi- 
 ates action of Pauling and Com- 
 pany, 93, 117; "spheres of influ- 
 ence", 58, 59, 62, 63, 120; trade 
 in China, 245 ; troops, 10, 13 
 
 Great Northern Railway Company, 
 259, 260, 262 
 
 Great Republic, The, 252, 261 
 
 Great Wall of China, 9, 10, 11, 106, 
 197, 209 
 
 Grenada, The, 257 
 
 Grey, Sir Edward, 66, 94, 174; 
 quoted, 113 
 
 Groton School (Massachusetts), 94 
 
 Guam, 270 
 
 "Gun-boat policy", 190 
 
 Habarovsk, 151 
 
 Hall, H. H. (American Consul at 
 Sydney), 255, 256 
 
 Hankow, China, 59, 68, 189 
 
 Hankow-Canton loan, 59, 60, 61, 
 62, 65-66, 70, 79 
 
 Hankow-Canton Railway conces- 
 sion, 60, 80, 198 
 
 Hankow-Szechuan line, 60, 65, 66, 80 
 
 Harbin, 110, 111, 119, 154, 158, 159, 
 168, 169, 172, 312; Japanese 
 Consul General at, quoted, 157; 
 meeting of Japanese and Russians 
 at, 165-167; policy, 184; Rus- 
 sian administration of, 197, 240 
 
 Harriman, Edward H., 49, 102, 103, 
 115, 119, 120, 150, 160, 161, 163, 
 165, 249, 263, 264, 265, 267, 317; 
 aid to Japan, 45, 47; lease of 
 Russian Railway, 39 ; mobbed in 
 Tokio, 40-41 ; ordered home, 105 ; 
 death of, 106, 162, 265 ; plan for 
 world belt line, 44, 105, 264, 265 ; 
 predicts war with Japan, 44, 47 
 
 Harris, Townsend, 219, 347 ; quoted, 
 277-278 
 
 Hart, Henry, 255 
 
 Hart, Robert, 293, 301 
 
 Hasagawa (Japanese Governor Gen- 
 eral of Korea), 334 
 
Index 
 
 S61 
 
 feawaii, 251, 258, 259, 262, 270, 275, 
 276 
 
 Hay, John, 23, 54, 58, 89, 103, 119, 
 124, 175, 202, 223, 225, 230, 239, 
 338; quoted, 148 
 
 Hayashi, Count (late Minister of 
 Foreign Affairs, Japan), 114, 282 
 
 Hill, James J., 264 
 
 Hill and Harriman railroads, 262 
 
 Hillier. Mr. (London), 66, 84 
 
 HocU, The, quoted, 188 
 
 Hokkaido, 246 
 
 Hongkong, 194, 244, 245, 251, 252, 
 253, 260, 261, 350 
 
 Hongkong-Shanghai bank, 83, 84 
 
 Honolulu, 3, 99, 257, 258, 259, 266 
 
 Horvat, General (Administrator of 
 Russian-Manchurian Railway), 
 173 
 
 Hsi Liang (Viceroy of Manchuria), 
 106, 107, 108, 172 
 
 Hsin-min-tun, 91, 103, 106 
 
 Hsin-min-tun Railway, 329; con- 
 troversy over, 92-94 ; extension 
 to Fa-ku-men, 93, 94, 109 ; sale of, 
 91-92 
 
 Hsu Shih-chang (Viceroy of Man- 
 churia), 92, 93, 107, 172 
 
 Hughes, Charles E., quoted, 7 
 
 Hukuang loan, 88, 89, 90, 106, 108, 
 109, 115, 118, 120, 131, 137, 199; 
 history of, 66-86 
 
 Huntington, CoUis P., 262, 264 
 
 li. Prince, 166 
 
 Ijuin, M. (Japanese Minister at 
 Peking), 109 
 
 Imperial Valley, 265 
 
 India, 278, 280 
 
 Indies, The, 321 
 
 Inland Sea, 261, 280, 345 
 
 Inouye, Count, 42, 43, 114, 246 
 
 Ishikawa, 29 
 
 Islands of Japan, 251 
 
 Italy, agreement to Open Door doc- 
 trine, 223 ; troops in Chihli, 10 
 
 Ito, Prince (Chief Elder Statesman 
 of Japan), 30, 39, 42, 43, 47, 49, 
 114, 148, 150, 164, 165, 168, 169, 
 
 Ito, Prince — {continued) 
 
 173, 178, 179, 184, 218, 234, 235, 
 241, 246, 285, 287, 312, 313, 318; 
 attitude toward Korea, 46 ; assas- 
 sination of. 111, 166-169, 184, 
 207, 347 ; decision of, 45 ; fame of, 
 41 ; friend of America, 46 ; great- 
 est Oriental since Confucius, 109 ; 
 made Imperial envoy, 110; 
 quoted, 167 
 Ito-Harriman agreement (lease of 
 Manchurian railways), 40-41, 44- 
 45, 46, 52, 91, 97, 103, 110, 112, 
 114, 120, 150, 176, 179, 289; 
 abandoned, 42, 43, 165, 176; 
 declined by China, 48 
 Iwakura Mission, 253 
 Iwasaki family, 254, 255, 261 
 lyeyasu (first Tokugawa ruler in 
 
 Japan), 280 
 Izwolsky, M. (foremost diplomat of 
 Russia), 109, 174, 184 
 
 Japan, 21, 54, 58, 87, 88, 91, 98, 109, 
 112, 116, 117, 118, 119, 120, 125, 
 
 127, 132, 228, 244, 253, 259, 286, 
 295, 310, 319, 351; American 
 treaty (Peary Treaty), 166, 205, 
 344; annexation of Korea, 128, 
 176, 208; attitude in currency 
 loan affair, 135-137, 139, 187, 188- 
 189, 190; edict of, 246-247; 
 Emperor of, 39, 41, 236, 239, 246, 
 279, 280, 281, 334; England an 
 ally, 24, 26, 49, 52, 81, 89, 93, 
 103, 180, 183, 207, 239; cause 
 for expansion, 227, 231 ; contro- 
 versy over Hsin-min-tun railway, 
 92-94, 103, 106, 109; Diet, 231; 
 diplomacy, 204-205, 206-207, 209, 
 228, 229, 236, 240; erasure of 
 treaties, 217-218, 220; European 
 allies of, 145 ; expansion into 
 Chihli, 231 ; expansion into Korea, 
 231 ; expansion into Manchuria, 
 41, 45, 50, 51, 56, 57, 59-60, 91, 
 
 128, 151 ; Expansionists (Kultiu*- 
 ists), 114, 228, 235, 236; first 
 diplomatic victory, 186; first po- 
 
36^ 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Japan — (continued) 
 
 litical mistake, 238; first treaty 
 (Korea), 281 ; Foreign Office, 175, 
 207; foreign policy, 42, 43, 176, 
 177, 184, 220; Formosa, 46, 239 ; 
 history of (Nitobe's), 278-281, 
 282, 288, 316; in East Asia, 5, 
 6, 14, 22, 188, 229, 272. 274, 
 276, 281, 282, 289, 312, 314-315, 
 337-353; in Pacific, 5, 88, 146, 
 210, 237, 247, 248, 249, 261, 
 275, 276, 277, 278, 314, 323, 
 337, 344, 346, 347, 348, 349- 
 353; Japan-China War, 101, 
 205, 207 ; Japanese-Russian agree- 
 ment, 326, 327; Japanese-Rus- 
 sian new convention (1916), 321- 
 322, 324, 329, 333, 348, 349; 
 Japanese-Russian predatory pact 
 (1910), 185, 192, 240, 272, 316, 
 317, 321, 349 ; legation in Peking, 
 104, 116, 303; literature, 301; 
 loan to, 25-26, 27; "Magna 
 Charta", 281; Manchurian rail- 
 way, 49, 92, 94, 106, 110 ; Mikado, 
 The, 257; Ministry of Foreign 
 Affairs, 316 ; Monroe Doctrine of, 
 231, 232; moral sense of, 346; 
 nationalizes industries, 246 ; need 
 of money, 24-25; Osaka- Yoko- 
 hama line, 254 ; partners of, 321 ; 
 plan of empire, 172, 173, 175, 179, 
 182, 188, 191, 208; policies, 6, 21, 
 346; political leader of Man- 
 churian allies, 131, 182, 186; 
 press, 114, 139, 158, 182, 188-189, 
 227; professions of, 200, 283; 
 profits from World War, 340-341 ; 
 Prussianized, 18; race question 
 on American coast (California), 
 7-8, 49, 50, 53, 98, 311; railway 
 sovereignty, 208; 
 
 Relations with China : agree- 
 ment with, 91-92, 207; control 
 of, 232, 237, 348; expansion into, 
 150, 176, 231, 243; demands 
 upon, 204, 209-210, 218, 228, 232, 
 235, 272, 283, 284, 301, 310, 311, 
 314, 315, 329-330, 348; full text 
 
 Japan — (continued) 
 
 of demands, 211-215; group V 
 of demands, 214-215, 218, 219, 
 226, 227, 228, 232, 233, 234, 236 ; 
 interference in, 64, 81, 188, 273, 
 286-287, 288, 289, 301-306; offer 
 to China's republican Govern- 
 ment, 189 ; plan to arm Chinese, 
 232; plan to divide China, 232; 
 protest to, 164 ; right-of-aid agree- 
 ment, 81 ; sale of railway to, 91- 
 92; special rights in, 185, 313; 
 trade in, 245-247 ; vetoes China's 
 railway plans, 103 ; 
 
 Relations with Manchuria: 
 builds railways in, 208; expan- 
 sion into, see under Japan, " ex- 
 pansion " ; invasion of, 297 ; mili- 
 tary mobilization in, 329; posi- 
 tion in, 121 ; plans in regard to, 
 42, 43, 44, 172, 175; special 
 privileges in, 48, 89, 90, 104 ; 
 
 Relations with Russia, 148- 
 156, 160-162, 163-170, 176-179, 
 184, 207; agreements with, 185, 
 192, 208, 210, 240, 272, 316, 317, 
 321-322, 324, 326, 327, 329, 333, 
 348, 349; demands upon, 29-30, 
 91; flanking of, 19; 
 
 Relations with United 
 States, 22; attitude towards 
 steamship lines, 260-261, 264 
 attitude towards Open Door doc 
 trine, 223, 239, 240, 284, 286 
 depredation upon, 336; expan 
 sion across Pacific, 240, 343, 348 
 opened by America, 237, 276, 279, 
 280 ; history of relations, 237-241 
 hostility to, 40, 47, 53, 98, 147 
 183, 237-241, 276, 277, 283, 291 
 310-312, 315-317, 318, 320 
 propaganda in, 53, 314 ; race ques 
 tion on Pacific coast (California) 
 7-8, 49,50,53, 98, 311; 
 Restoration, 166; rulers of, 279- 
 281; Sea of, 14, 20; securities 
 of, 25 ; seizure of Kiaochou, 64 ; 
 seizure of Loochoo Kingdom, 238; 
 temper in Portsmouth Treaty, 42, 
 
INDEX 
 
 363 
 
 Japan — • (continued) 
 
 45, 49, 240 ; troops, 13, 14 ; War 
 
 Government, 334 ; war upon 
 
 Germany, 1 ; weakness in assets, 
 
 42; Year Book, 320 
 Japan, The, 252, 261, 265 
 Japan-China War, 101, 205, 207, 
 
 297 
 Japanese-American Treaty, 344 
 Japanese East and West News, 
 
 quoted, 267 
 Japanese Restoration, 106 
 Japan Gazette, The, 267 
 Japan to America, 228 
 Jenks, Jeremiah W., 124, 129 
 Jernigan, T. R. (ex-Consul General 
 
 at Shanghai), quoted, 222 
 Jordan, David Starr, 308 
 Jordan, Sir John (British Minister), 
 
 66. 125; quoted, 74. 83 
 Jukuan, 12 
 
 Kahn, Otto H., 168; quoted, 44-45 
 
 Kalgan, 10 
 
 Kamchatka, 147 
 
 Kaneko, Baron, 26, 148, 276; at 
 
 Portsmouth, 29, 30, 31-35, 37, 
 
 246 
 Kato, 235, 236 
 Katsuma, Awa, 254 
 Katsura, Marquis, 42, 43, 109. 114, 
 
 145, 208, 246; quoted, 29 
 Keamy, Commander (East India 
 
 squadron), 222 
 Kiaochou, 203, 205, 209, 315, 323, 
 
 345 ; Bay of, 64 
 Kinchou, 104, 297 
 Kinchou-Aigun Railway scheme, 
 
 104-105, 113, 117, 118, 119, 159, 
 
 164, 170, 199, 289, 329; history 
 
 of, 106-112, 113, 117 
 Kittery Point, see Portsmouth 
 Kiukazan, Sendai, 254 
 Knox, Philander C. (Secretary of 
 
 State), 55, 67, 68, 83, 115, 119, 
 
 120, 143, 175, 181, 186, 189, 197. 
 
 208, 215. 225, 326; quoted, 90. 
 
 112, 114, 200 
 Kobe, 254 
 
 Kobe Chronicle, quoted, 267 
 
 Kokovtseff, M. (Russian Minister of 
 Finance), 105, 109, 110, 111, 153, 
 164, 165, 166, 167, 168, 170, 184 
 
 Kokumin, The, quoted, 158 
 
 Komahura, 279 
 
 Komura, Baron, 52, 55, 78, 81, 87, 
 91, 95, 107, 111, 114, 230, 234, 236, 
 241, 312, 313, 340, 345, 347. 352; 
 at Portsmouth, 28, 29, 30, 34, 35 ; 
 first Asiatic to distrust America, 
 47; genius of "Greater Japan", 
 109, 145, 235, 285 ; policy of, 38, 
 43, 49 ; scheme of expansion, 150, 
 168, 169, 231, 233, 235, 236, 240, 
 241 ; threatened by Japanese, 42 ; 
 work of, 48-49, 103 
 
 Korea, 19, 25, 42, 45, 46, 101, 146, 
 206, 215, 235, 238, 239, 253, 278, 
 280, 283, 310, 311, 313, 320, 329, 
 351, 352; annexation by Japan, 
 128, 176, 208, 218, 231, 235, 241, 
 333; conspiracy case, 272; Jap- 
 anese advance in, 159, 231, 239; 
 military occupation of, 224 ; mur- 
 der of Queen, 166; opened to 
 world, 238; treaties with, 197, 
 198, 225, 238, 281 
 
 Korea, The. 266 
 
 Korostovetz, M. (Russian Minister 
 at Peking), 109, 157, 158, 169, 173 ; 
 at Portsmouth, 28, 36; quoted, 
 115, 162 
 
 Kuhn, Loeb and Company, 98, 105, 
 106, 198 
 
 Kukuan Pass, 11 
 
 Kuropatkin, General (Russian Min- 
 ister of War), 149 
 
 LaFoUette-Fiu-useth Seaman's Act, 
 
 2, 265, 267, 268 
 Lake Baikal, 151 
 Legations at Peking, 67, 75, 82, 84, 
 
 93, 104, 116, 234, 303 
 Lenox, N. Y., 33, 34, 35 
 Leonari Apartment House (New 
 
 York), 32, 35 
 Leopold, King, 80 
 Levant, The, 73 
 
S64 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Liang Tun-yen (Head of Chinese 
 
 Foreign Office), 71, 75, 96, 118, 
 
 172; quoted, 72, 99 
 Liao River, 329 
 Liaotung, 315, 323 
 Libau, 44 
 Liege, 19 
 
 Li Hung-chang, 9, 167 
 Ling, E. S., quoted, 304 
 Little, Archibald, 300 
 Liu Kuan-ts'ai, 11 
 Lloyd George, David, quoted, 308 
 Loeb, Secretary, 37 
 London, 24, 39, 49, 79, 119, 141, 181, 
 
 184, 325 
 London Daily Chronicle, The, 326; 
 
 quoted, 349 
 London Daily News, The, 234 
 London Morning Post, The, 234; 
 
 quoted, 326 
 London Morning Telegraph, The, 
 
 29, 234 
 London Times, The, 29, 204, 234; 
 
 quoted, 327 
 Longworth, Mrs. Nicholas, 40 
 Loochoo Kingdom, 238 
 Los Angeles, 7 
 
 Lotus Club, New York, 31, 33, 35 
 Loubet, President, 16 
 Lovett, R. S., 264 
 Lusitania, The, 226, 310 
 
 Macao, 295 
 
 MacCartee, Doctor, 238 
 
 Magdalena Bay, 230, 274 
 
 Mahan, Admiral, 14 
 
 Mainichi, The, 189 
 
 Manchester Guardian, The, 234 
 
 Manchu, ancestral palaces, 97; 
 kingdom 224; monarchy, 191, 
 292, 302, 307; throne, 71, 78, 93 
 107, 126, 216 
 
 Manchuria, 14, 16, 20, 46, 47, 57, 
 208, 266, 326, 329; American 
 position in, 120 ; America's phys- 
 ical rights in, 103 ; application of 
 currency loan to, 136, 139, 141, 
 143 ; America's neutralization 
 plan, 103-121, 128, 130-131, 143, 
 
 Manchuria — (continued) 
 
 164, 170, 174-184; arbitrament 
 of, 18; base of conquest, 89, 177; 
 battlefields of, 13, 208; contro- 
 versy over Hsin-min-tun Rail- 
 way, 91-94, 103, 106, 109 ; China's 
 railways in, 91, 92, 94, 103 ; divi- 
 sion of sovereignty in, 158, 177, 
 209, 225 ; government remodeled, 
 92; Japan's attitude towards, 41, 
 42,^43, 44, 45, 56; Japanese and 
 Russian pressure in, 108, 178, 197, 
 231, 297 ; Japanese military mobi- 
 lization in, 329, 333 ; Japan's posi- 
 tion in, 121 ; Japan's railways in, 
 92, 94, 106, 110, 208; Kinchou- 
 Aigun Railway scheme, 104-105, 
 106-112, 113, 117, 118, 119; 
 lease of railways, 40 (see also 
 South Manchurian Railway) ; les- 
 sons of, 17, 18, 19; meeting of 
 Ito and Kokovtseff, 164-167 ; po- 
 litical situation in, 90 ; "spheres of 
 influence" in, 104, 164; special 
 privileges in, 48, 56, 59, 89, 90, 
 159, 160, 161, 179, 209 ; situation 
 between Japan and Russia in, 
 148-149,161-162; Russia's posi- 
 tion in, 56, 121 ; trade marts 
 opened, 243; treaties of, 198; 
 Tsitsihar-Aigun Railway agree- 
 ment, 104, 106 ; visitors to, 172- 
 173 
 
 Manchurian allies (Japan, Russia, 
 Great Britain, France), 54, 57, 97, 
 120, 131, 138, 142, 143, 227, 228, 
 248, 273, 321, 325, 326, 333, 339, 
 340, 341, 349 ; agreement between, 
 89, 137, 178, 183, 185, 240; 
 
 Attitude Towards China's 
 revolution, 188; neutralization 
 proposal, 181-182; Open Door 
 principle in East Asia, 230 ; Tong's 
 mission, 97 ; 
 
 In East Asia, 233-234, 236, 340; 
 leader of, 131, 182; opposition to 
 America, 89, 109-118; reverses 
 to, 233, 234; standing of, 121; 
 supremacy in Europe, 227 
 
INDEX 
 
 S65 
 
 Manchurian bank scheme, 52, 97, 
 98, 104 
 
 Manchurian Period (1894-1900), 
 22, 23 
 
 "Manchurian Question", 88, 90, 
 104, 175, 180 
 
 Manila, 259 
 
 Manila Bay, 64, 85, 278, 350 
 
 Mariposa, The, 258, 259 
 
 Marmora, Sea of, 134 
 
 Martin, Doctor W. A. P., quoted, 
 292 
 
 Marvin, George, 94 
 
 Ma Tuan-lin, 141 
 
 Mayflower, The, 28 
 
 McCullagh, Francis (of Manchuria), 
 29 
 
 McGregor, The, 257 
 
 McKinley, President, 2, 175, 202 
 
 Meredith, George, quoted, 37 
 
 Mesopotamia, 13, 340 
 
 Metropolitan Period (1853-1882), 22 
 
 Metzger, Herr (German Consul in 
 Manchuria), 95 
 
 Mexico, 352; revolution in, 4 
 
 Mikado, The, 257 
 
 Miller, Henry B. (Consul General at 
 Yokohama), 247 
 
 Minnesota, The, 259, 266 
 
 Mitsu-Bishi Company, 254, 255 
 
 Moada, The, 254 
 
 Moltke, Count von, 145 
 
 Mongol, The, 257 
 
 Mongolia, 94, 102, 106, 208, 266, 
 329; alienization of Outer Mon- 
 golia, 197-198, 203, 208 ; Japanese 
 expansion into, 231 ; Japanese 
 special rights in, 330 
 
 Mongols, 3, 9 
 
 Momoe Doctrine, 221, 231, 312, 313, 
 342; for East Asia, 231, 232; 
 Japan's substitute for, 231, 232 
 
 Montenegro, 343 
 
 Moore, John Bassett, 4 
 
 Morgan, J. Pierpont, 67, 198 
 
 Morrison, George Ernest, 29 
 
 Moses Taylor, The, 255 
 
 Motono, Baron (Japanese Ambassa- 
 dor to Russia), 152, 184, 333 
 
 Mukden, 91, 96, 107; American 
 Consul General at, 52, 93. 104; 
 Chinese government at, 104-105, 
 330 ; terminus of Chinese railway, 
 92 ; viceroys at, 172, 173 
 
 Mukden-Antung Railway, 56 
 
 *' Mukden Cabinet", 94, 96, 97, 105, 
 115 
 
 Mutsuhito, Emperor of Japan, 280 
 
 Nagasaki, 254 
 
 Nanking, 189, 295 
 
 Napoleon, 145 
 
 National City Bank (New York), 69 
 
 Na Tung (Chief Minister Foreign 
 
 Affairs for China), 140, 172, 187; 
 
 quoted, 106 
 Neaudeau, Ludovic {Redadeur du 
 
 Journal, Paris), 14 
 Nebraska, The, 255, 256 
 Nekrasoff, Professor, 153 
 Neutralization schemes: first, 150; 
 
 second, 153; third, 160; fourth, 
 
 162; fifth, see American neu- 
 tralization proposal 
 Neuve Chapelle, 226, 234, 235, 236 
 Nevada, 251 
 
 Nevada, The, 254, 255, 256 
 Newell, Captain, 254 
 New Mexico, 251 
 New York, The, 254 
 New York Central Railway, 44 
 New York City, 25, 29, 31, 33, 37, 
 
 49, 106, 204, 251, 287 
 New York, London and China 
 
 Steamship Company, 257 
 New York Times, The, 324 
 New Zealand, 256, 257 
 Niang-tse-kuan, 12 
 Nicolaevsk, 147 
 Nitobe, Inazo, history of Japan by, 
 
 278-281,316; quoted, 282, 288 
 Nobel Peace Prize to President 
 
 Roosevelt, 30 ; price of, 38 
 Noetzlin, Mr. (head of International 
 
 Wagons-Lits), 105, 106, 119, 
 
 165 
 Nonni River, 52 
 North China, included under China 
 
366 
 
 INDEX 
 
 North German Lloyd Company, 257 
 North Manchuria, included under 
 
 Manchuria 
 North Manchurian Railway, 42 
 North Pacific Railway, 259, 266 
 North Sea, 340 
 Novoe Vremya, The, 161 
 
 O'Brien, Mr. (Ambassador to Japan), 
 230 
 
 Oceanic Steamship Company of 
 America, 258, 266, 334 
 
 Okuma (Japanese Premier), 206, 
 216, 217, 236, 244, 254, 287, 299, 
 300, 318, 330, 332, 333, 334, 336, 
 338, 341; quoted, 217, 218, 228, 
 324, 326, 329, 331 
 
 O'Laughlin, Callan, 99 
 
 Olongapo, 350 
 
 Omnibus protocol, 223 
 
 Omsk, 153 
 
 Open Door Decade (1900 ), 22, 
 
 23, 26, 243, 249 ; Boxer Uprising, 
 22; China's struggle against 
 aggression, 23; Russian- Japanese 
 War, 22, 23 
 
 Open Door doctrine, 1, 23, 51, 54, 
 5Q, 58, 59, 64, 73, 77, 82, 89, 97, 
 103, 113, 120, 123, 130, 134, 143, 
 146, 154, 161, 163, 170, 179, 180, 
 183, 195, 199, 243, 247, 249, 274, 
 276, 282, 283, 285, 310, 315, 319, 
 321 ; American adherence to, 50, 
 101, 102, 112, 178, 235, 239, 241 ; 
 conventions, 130 ; developed 
 under Hay, 23, 58, 230, 239; 
 death blow to, 192, 284 ; destroyed 
 by Japan, 351; failure of, 118; 
 formally established, 222, 223; 
 in China, 57, 86, 89, 208, 210, 224, 
 229, 232, 241, 321 ; in Manchuria, 
 341 ; Japan's substitute for, 232, 
 233, 239; older than Monroe 
 Doctrine, 221 ; opposition to, 113, 
 178, 185; revised, 190, 193-194, 
 210 ; Russia's violation of, 52, 54 ; 
 threatened, 88, 90, 102, 186, 208, 
 218, 229, 230 ; treaties in support 
 of, 223-224, 230 
 
 Open Door powers, 149, 159, 170, 
 
 184, 239 
 
 Oregon, The, 254 
 
 Oregon Territory, 251, 259, 260, 262 
 
 Osaka- Yokohama line, 254 
 
 Oshima, General (Governor of 
 Kuangtung), 173; becomes Min- 
 ister of War, 334 
 
 Oyster Bay, 29, 31 
 
 Pacific, The, 3, 4, 7, 8, 9, 14, 20, 57, 
 98, 103, 168, 197, 203, 244, 249, 
 251, 266, 312, 315. 317, 320, 328, 
 339 ; America in, 2, 6, 21, 22, 23, 
 27, 28, 53, 54, 60, 144, 145, 146, 
 148, 166, 169, 179, 220, 226, 243, 
 249, 250, 274, 275, 276, 285, 309, 
 318, 319, 322, 334, 337-344, 346, 
 348; balance of power in, 145, 
 146, 237; commercial battle in, 
 199; Europe in, 65, 73, 145, 237, 
 347; Europe-Japan alliance in, 
 318, 321, 334, 349 ; first steamer, 
 line across, 251, 252, 253, 262, 266; 
 France in, 16; Japan in, 5, 88, 
 146, 210, 237, 247, 248, 249, 261, 
 275, 276, 277, 278, 314, 323, 337, 
 344, 346, 347, 348, 349-353; 
 naval bases in, 270, 275, 276, 277, 
 278; Open Door policy in, 50, 
 87, 309, 310 ; present and future 
 conditions in, 325, 336-353 ; prob- 
 lems in, 22, 73, 113, 120, 166, 279, 
 313, 343, 352 ; Prussian principles 
 in, 321 ; steamship lines in, 250- 
 269 ; strategic importance of, 350 ; 
 struggle in, 21, 145, 273, 352; 
 world issue, 6 
 
 Pacific Mail Steamship Line, 2, 44 ; 
 Pacific liners sold, 3 ; history of, 
 251-269 
 
 Pago Pago, 258, 278 
 
 Panama, Isthmus of, 251 
 
 Panama Canal, 3 ; building of, 249 ; 
 opening inaugurated, 54, 144 
 
 Paoting-Fu, 10 
 
 Paris, 12, 14, 18, 79, 105, 106, 119, 
 131, 134, 181, 325 : dash on, 11, 
 17,19 
 
INDEX 
 
 367 
 
 Pauling and Company (England), 
 93, 104, 106, 107, 115, 117 
 
 Pearl Harbor, 278, 350 
 
 Peking, 9, 10, 12, 28, 72, 73, 79, 82, 
 95, 96, 97, 99, 105, 107, 108, 121, 
 134, 136, 138, 144, 158, 165, 173, 
 182, 204, 208, 209, 216, 220, 242, 
 292, 295, 304, 305, 311, 315; 
 Board of Revenue, 124, 127 ; con- 
 troversy over Hukuang loan at, 
 83-84; American envoy at, 273; 
 diplomatic importance of, 62-63, 
 118; diplomatic post at, 2; 
 Grand Council at, 85, 99 ; lega- 
 tions at, 67, 75, 82, 84, 93, 104, 
 116, 234, 303; military conclave 
 in, 11, 13 
 
 Peking-Turkestan road, 11 
 
 Perry, Commodore, 275, 279, 280, 
 285 
 
 Persia, 135, 295 
 
 Petrograd, see St. Petersburg 
 
 Petuna, 323, 329 
 
 Phelps, S. Ledyard, 252 
 
 Philadelphia, Centennial at, 253 
 
 Philippine question, 2 
 
 Philippines, The, 3, 5, 55, 249, 270, 
 275, 276, 291, 316 
 
 Phillips, William, 68 
 
 Phinney, James H., 252 
 
 Pichon, Stephen (French Minister 
 in Peking), 11, 12, 66; quoted, 
 14-15 
 
 Pi-tzu-wo, 297 
 
 Pius IX, Pope, 36 ; quoted, 37 
 
 Pokotiloff, M. (Russian Minister at 
 Peking), 28, 155 
 
 Port Arthur, 350; birth of, 28; 
 dedication of Japanese monument 
 at, 173 ; funeral of, 29 ; lessons of, 
 19 
 
 Portsmouth, N. H. (Kittery Point), 
 37, 39, 45, 47, 48, 101, 150, 151, 
 155, 234, 235, 340, 345, 347; 
 meeting of nations at, 28, 144 ; 
 secret negotiations at, 43 
 
 Portsmouth Treaty, 1, 6, 16, 39, 40, 
 48, 57, 91, 107, 119, 149, 154, 175, 
 207, 224, 227, 230, 241, 337; 
 
 Portsmouth Treaty — {continued) 
 attendants at conference, 28, 29; 
 Article VI, see Article VI; con- 
 clusion of, 36; condemned in 
 Japan, 40-41 ; deadlock over, 30- 
 31 ; discussion of terms, 29, 32-33, 
 
 36, 175, 176; history of, 28-38; 
 Japan's change of position, 35; 
 peace council, 31-35, 144 ; result, 
 38 ; secret minutes of, 43, 49 , 176 
 
 Portugal, 352 
 
 Predatory pact (Russia and Japan), 
 185, 192, 240, 272, 316, 317, 321, 
 323, 349 
 
 Pri-amur Province, 173 
 
 Primorskaya Province, 162 
 
 Prussian war machine, see German 
 army 
 
 Puget Sound-Siberian steamer ser- 
 vice, 147 
 
 Quallah Battoo, 285 
 
 Rangatura, The, 255 
 Revelstoke, Lord, quoted, 25-26 
 Reventlow, Count, 17 
 Revolutionary War (America), 197 
 Right-of-aid agreements, 61, 62, 65, 
 
 67, 68, 69, 71, 75 
 Roberts, Edmund (first envoy to 
 
 East Asia), 210 
 Roberts, Lord, 37 
 Rockhill, Mr. (Minister at Peking), 2, 
 
 53, 67, 96, 119, 130, 157, 170, 175 
 Roosevelt, President, 2, 29, 38, 40, 
 
 43, 50, 95, 124, 175; awarded 
 Nobel prize, 30; connection with 
 Portsmouth Treaty, 30-35, 36, 47, 
 148 ; efforts in Japanese question, 
 174, 205 ; inaugurated opening 
 Panama Canal, 54 ; sent battle- 
 ship fleet into Pacific, 53-54, 174 ; 
 two great deeds of, 145 ; quoted, 
 
 37, 276, 284 
 
 Root, Elihu (Secretary of State), 6, 
 
 54, 175, 184, 195, 197, 230, 338 
 Root-Takahira agreement, 103, 116, 
 
 211, 224, 322; arranged, 98; 
 criticized, 101-102 ; signed, 99, 100 
 
S68 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Rose, The, 254 
 
 Rosen, Baron (former Minister to 
 Japan), 28, 30, 32, 33, 35 
 
 Russell and Company, 252 
 
 Russia, 24, 55, 57, 58, 91, 109, 110, 
 111, 112, 113, 115, 116, 117, 119, 
 120, 125, 126, 132, 207, 228, 318, 
 337, 348, 350, 351; administra- 
 tion of Harbin, 197 ; aggressions, 
 60 ; alienation of Outer Mongolia, 
 197-198, 203, 208; army council 
 (St. Petersburg), 152; Article 
 VI (Russian-Chinese contract), 
 
 48, 154-155, 157, 158, 159, 160, 
 
 162, 163, 169, 176, 177, 178, 185, 
 220 ; Asian diplomacy, 145 ; atti- 
 tude in neutralization proposal, 
 175, 181-182, 184; attitude on 
 currency loan, 135-137, 139, 140, 
 190; balance in East Asia, 323; 
 basis of position, 54 ; Chinese 
 Eastern Railway, 45, 111, 119; 
 Consul General at Amur, quoted, 
 157; Czar of, 173; demand in 
 Hukuang loan affair, 80 ; demand 
 on China, 169 ; Duma, the, 152 
 Foreign Office, 28 ; in World War, 
 328; legation at Peking, 104 
 Manchurian railway, 42, 152, 153 
 154, 156, 162, 165, 169, 170 
 179, 329, 333; miUtary power, 
 146; ministries, 151, 158, 161, 162 
 
 163, 170, 178; peril from, 25 
 position in Manchuria, 121, 228 
 243; press, 115, 153, 161, 182 
 problems of, 151, 154, 157-158 
 protest to China, 164; relations 
 with America, 27, 147-148, 157- 
 159; relations with Japan, 24, 
 
 49, 57, 78, 115, 147-148, 148-156, 
 157, 158-170, 175-179, 184, 210, 
 230, 313, 315, 316-317, 322-323, 
 328; secret undertakings with 
 China, 43, 154, 176; seizes mur- 
 derer of Ito, 167 ; Siberian border, 
 151, 153, 178; special rights in 
 Manchuria, 89, 90, 104, 185; 
 sphere in Manchuria, 110; sub- 
 sidized ships, 245; transfer of 
 
 Russia — (continued) 
 
 Alaska, 27, 32, 147; troops dis- 
 cussed, 13, 14, 17; violation of 
 Open Door doctrine, 52, 56, 230; 
 war debts of, 337 
 
 Russian-Chinese Eastern Railway, 
 44, 119, 151, 152, 158, 162, 177; 
 loss on, 45 
 
 Russian-Japanese alliances, 223 ; 
 Predatory pact, see Predatory 
 pact 
 
 Russian-Japanese protest to China, 
 164 
 
 Russian-Japanese War, 22, 59, 121, 
 148, 158, 205, 207, 208, 233, 240, 
 243, 245, 285, 294, 295, 301, 317, 
 339, 350; lessons of, 13, 17-18; 
 peace problems of, 29 
 
 Russian railway in South Man- 
 churia, see South Manchurian 
 Railway 
 
 Russo-Chinese Bank, 158, 177 
 
 Sagamore Hill, 33, 35 
 
 Saghalin, discussed at Portsmouth, 
 
 29, 32, 33, 176 
 Saigo Yorimichi, General (Japanese 
 
 Minister of War), 238, 253 
 San Diego Exposition, 3 
 San Francisco, 251, 252, 253, 256, 
 
 257, 258, 259, 287 
 San Francisco Bay, 266 
 San Francisco-Sydney line, 255 
 Satoh, at Portsmouth, 29, 36, 38 
 Satsuma Rebellion, 255 
 Saturday Evening Post, The, 37 
 Savory, Nathaniel, 275 
 Sazonoff, Sergius (Minister Foreign 
 
 Affairs), 330; quoted, 323, 329, 
 
 348-349 
 Scidmore, G. H., 267 
 Schiff, Jacob, 43, 49, 67, 69, 103, 
 
 120, 249; financial alliance with 
 
 Kuhn-Loeb-Rockefeller, and J. P. 
 
 Morgan and Company, 198 ; loan 
 
 to Japan, 24-26, 40, 47, 205; 
 
 offer to finance "Manchurian 
 
 Bank", 98; quoted, 198 
 Schwartzhoff, General, 10 
 
INDEX 
 
 369 
 
 Schwerin, Lieutenant R. P., 262 
 
 Seamen's Act, 2, 265, 267, 268 
 
 Seoul, 134, 238, 295 
 
 Serbia, 318, 340, 343 
 
 Seward, William H., 143, 195, 225, 
 
 253; quoted, 195, 202 
 Shamrock, The, 254 
 Shanghai, 222, 245, 249, 252, 255, 
 
 275, 277 
 Shanghai Period (1844 ), 22, 
 
 259 
 Shansi, 9, 11, 12 
 Shantung, 9, 61, 149, 203, 323 
 Sheng Hsuan-hwai (Vice President 
 
 Board of Communications), 130, 
 
 140, 187 
 Sherley, S. (Congressman), quoted, 
 
 350 
 Shibusawa, Baron Yei-ichi, 284, 285, 
 
 286, 287, 289, 318, 325, 333; 
 
 quoted, 287-288 
 Shimonoseki, 350; treaty of, 295 
 Shipoff, Ivan, 153 
 Ship Subsidy Bill, 256 
 Shufeldt, Commander, 238 
 Shuster, Morgan, 135 
 Siam, 196, 253, 276 
 Siberia, 148, 174, 175, 228 
 Siberia, The, 266 
 Siege of the legations, 9, 67 
 Sierra, The, 258, 259 
 Six-Power Loan, 191, 195, 197, 199, 
 
 215, 221, 272, 341 
 Smalley, George W. {London Times), 
 
 29 
 Sone, Baron (Japanese Minister of 
 
 Finance), 39, 41, 43 
 Sonoma, The, 258, 259 
 South Chihli, see Chihli 
 Southern Manchuria, see Manchuria 
 South Manchurian Railway, 40, 42, 
 
 44, 94, 114, 177, 241, 246, 322, 328, 
 
 329; lease to Harriman, 39, 105 
 Soyeda, 43 
 Spain, 315 
 
 Special rights powers, 240 
 Special rights system, 190, 232, 322 
 Spice Islands, 275 
 Spreckles, J. D., 258 
 
 Stone, Melville E. (Associated Press), 
 
 47; connection with Portsmouth 
 
 Treaty, 31-35, 37, 38 
 St. Petersburg, 28, 30, 31, 35, 36, 44, 
 
 79, 119, 152, 161, 164, 169, 171, 
 
 173, 181, 182, 208, 322, 325, 330; 
 
 Minister of Foreign Affairs at, 
 
 quoted, 170 
 Straight, Willard (American Consul 
 
 General at Mukden), 94, 105, 135 ; 
 
 China's agreement with, 52; 
 
 Tong Shao-yi's arrangement with, 
 
 93 
 Straits of Magellan, 53 
 Subotitch, General (Governor of 
 
 Port Arthur), 149 
 Sumatra, oil markets of, 244 
 Sungari River, 160, 178, 322, 323, 
 
 328, 329 
 Sun Yat-sen (first President of 
 
 China), quoted, 306 
 Sydney, Australia, 256, 257, 258, 
 
 259 
 
 Taft, President, 54, 67, 103, 120, 
 140, 142, 143, 145, 186, 225; 
 cablegram to Prince Chun, 84, 85, 
 86, 88 ; course in East Asia, 55, 56, 
 175 ; snubbed at Canton, 40 ; 
 quoted, 50-51, 87, 199-200; visit 
 to East Asia, 175 
 
 Tahiti, 258, 259 
 
 T'ai-ping Rebellion, 307 
 
 Tairas dynasty, 279 
 
 Takahashi, 43 
 
 Takahira, 29, 34, 35, 37 
 
 Tanaka, Mr. (Director Japanese 
 Manchurian Railway), 159 
 
 Tao Kuang (Emperor of China), 253 
 
 Tartar, The, 257 
 
 Terauchi, General (Japanese Minis- 
 ter of War), 173; made Minister 
 of Foreign Affairs, 333-334 
 
 Terranova (sailor), 221 
 
 Thompson, Howard, 29, 34 
 
 Tientsin, 93, 125, 276, 295 
 
 Tientsin-Pukow Railway, contract 
 for, 59 ; loan, 59, 61, 70 
 
 Togo, Admiral, 287 
 
370 
 
 INDEX 
 
 ToMo, 29, 30, 39, 43, 47, 48, 52, 79, 
 119, 144, 150, 154, 191, 203, 234, 
 277, 303, 313, 334, 340, 353 ; Amer- 
 ican embassy at, 317 ; diplomatic 
 post at, 2 ; Foreign Office at, 321 
 
 Tong Shao-yi (Governor at Mukden), 
 95, 96, 98, 101, 108, 118, 126, 172; 
 arrival in San Francisco, 98; 
 arrangement with Mr. Straight, 
 93; attempted purchase of rail- 
 way, 92-93; Manchurian bank 
 scheme, 52, 97 ; mission to Wash- 
 ington, 97, 98, 99, 124, 159 ; plan 
 to enlist American aid, 94, 96, 
 124; "political rocket", 96; re- 
 called to China, 102 ; resigned as 
 Governor, 97 
 
 Tosa, Daimyo of, 254 
 
 Treaty period, 146 
 
 Troops in Chihli, Austrian, 10; 
 British, 10 ; Italian, 10 ; merit of 
 international, 13-15 
 
 Tsai Tseh, Duke (Minister of Fi- 
 nance), 126, 128, 129, 140 
 
 Tsingtao, "German sphere" at, 64 
 
 Tsitsihar, 104 
 
 Tsitsihar-Aigun Railway agreement, 
 104, 106 
 
 Tumen River, 56 
 
 Turkey, 13, 190, 293, 295, 296, 318 
 
 Tutuila, 258, 259 
 
 Union Pacific Railway, 44 
 
 Union Steamship Company of New 
 Zealand, 258 
 
 United States, alliance of govern- 
 ment and financiers, 198 ; alliance 
 with France and England, 15 ; 
 Asiatic immigration issue, 343; 
 Burlingame Treaty, 222; battle- 
 ship fleet, 53-54, 144, 174; cabi- 
 net dissolved, 4 ; controversy over 
 Hukuang loan, 66-86; conflict 
 with Manchurian allies, 89, 109- 
 118; consuls in Manchuria, 52- 
 53; "Dollar Diplomacy", 141, 
 143, 326; escape from World 
 War, 13; factors of expansion, 
 23; first war scare, 53; foreign 
 
 United States — {continued) 
 
 affairs, 2, 5, 64, 186, 187 ; govern- 
 ment, 3-8, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 
 56, 69, 98-102, 141, 143, 156, 157, 
 184, 187, 197, 201, 220, 225, 226, 
 228, 250, 336 ; " Gun-boat policy", 
 190; Hankow-Canton loan, 61, 
 65, 66-70, 79; Hankow-Canton 
 railway concession, 60, 80, 198; 
 Indian squadron, 201, 222; in 
 East Asia, see under East Asia; 
 in Pacific, see under Pacific ; lega- 
 tion at Peking, 67; loan policy, 
 198-199 ; Manchurian question 
 raised, 88, 90, 154, 157-159, 161- 
 162; merchant marine, 249-269 ; 
 most important act of diplomacy, 
 54; national policy, 8; neutral- 
 ization proposal, 103, 112-121, 
 128, 130, 131, 143, 164, 170, 
 174-175, 179, 180-184, 186, 200, 
 207, 240, 241; oldest foreign 
 rights, 220; only hope for, 341, 
 344; Open, Door treaties, 221, 
 223-224 ; opposition to Eiu-ope's 
 diplomacy, 145 ; overseas fail- 
 ures, 249-250; Pacific coast, 2, 
 6, 64, 237; Pacific war issue, 
 343; Panama Canal, 144; plan 
 to finance Manchurian bank, 104 ; 
 press, 115, 116, 204, 217, 218; 
 present situation in East Asia and 
 Pacific, 336-353; physical inter- 
 ests in Manchm-ia, 103, 104, 117, 
 120; 
 
 Relations with China, 270, 
 273, 274, 275, 276; Boxer indem- 
 nity, 95-96, 223, 310-311, 333; 
 capital in, 104, 325, 336; coop- 
 eration in Chinese loans, 68, 69, 
 331, 332 ; currency loan, 130-143, 
 147, 187-189, 199; diplomatic 
 battle, 145-172, 179-185, 199; 
 finance, 198, 242-249 ; interest in 
 China's development, 98, 128, 
 194-195 ; insult to, 99-100, 101 ; 
 interference in, 196, 221-225; 
 millions in, 196, 311 ; note to, 68, 
 70 ; physical footing in, 145, 163, 
 
INDEX 
 
 371 
 
 United States — (continued) 
 
 275, 326, 342 ; railway concessions, 
 60, 80, 198; right-of-aid agree- 
 ment, 6], 67, 68, 69, 71; rights 
 in, 198, 199; share in commerce, 
 58, 60, 62, 64, 65, 67, 68, 86 ; trade 
 with, 242-249 ; Treaty (American- 
 Chinese), 122, 222, 223, 237; 
 
 Relations with Japan: arbi- 
 tration treaty, 53; attitude on 
 Japan's demands, 218-219; con- 
 flict with, 1, 94, 95, 183, 238-241, 
 291 ; dominated by Japan, 219 ; 
 financial adviser, 130, 132-138, 
 140, 142; future relations, 344; 
 help to Japan, 205 ; history of 
 relations, 237-241 ; imitation of, 
 51; loan 25-26, 27, 142; race 
 question (California), 7-8, 49, 50, 
 53, 98, 311 ; opening of Japan, 
 237, 276, 279, 280; physical in- 
 terests, 326 ; trade, 242 ; violation 
 of treaty, 50, 51 ; war with, 342, 
 343, 345, 347, 350, 352, 353; 
 Relations with Russia, 27, 52, 
 147-148, 157-159; responsibility 
 for Ito's death, 168; rights out- 
 raged, 4; Root-Takahira agree- 
 ment, 98-103, 116, 120, 211, 224; 
 Seaman's Act, 2, 265, 267, 268; 
 slated to 'pay war debts, 337; 
 
 State Department, 81, 96, 
 98, 99, 101, 102, 111, 122, 130, 
 225, 317, 331, 332, 338, 347; 
 quoted, 72-73, 86, 100; 
 Treaties with Korea, 197, 198, 
 225 ; war zone agreement, 224 ; 
 wealth, 328, 329 
 
 University of California, 129 
 
 Ussuri Province, 101 
 
 Utah, 251 
 
 Von Emmich, Otto, General, 19 
 
 Von Ketteler, General, at Kukuan 
 Pass, 11, 12; death of, 67 
 
 Von Waldersee, Count, 9 
 
 Von Wallmenich, Lieutenant-Colo- 
 nel, 12 
 
 Wall Street, New York City, 3, 44, 
 49, 111, 162, 266 
 
 Ward, Frederick Townsend, 307 
 
 Washington, D.C., 6, 28, 29, 33, 36, 
 37, 50, 53, 78, 79, 118, 129, 157, 
 180, 183, 197, 242, 341, 348 
 
 Washington, George, 197 
 
 Washington Post, The, 204 
 
 Washington Territory, 259, 260, 262 
 
 Webb and Holladay, 255 
 
 West Chihli, see Chihli 
 
 Westminster Gazette, quoted, 322 
 
 White, Henry, 119 
 
 William, Emperor, 8, 9, 64, 85; 
 cablegram to, 33 ; connection with 
 Portsmouth Treaty, 32, 33, 34, 
 35.36 
 
 Willis, Mr. (British Consul at Muk- 
 den), 95 
 
 Wilson, Huntington, 68 
 
 Wilson, President, 193, 195, 197, 
 210, 221, 223, 225, 226, 249,265, 
 267, 273, 310, 311, 331, 332, 336, 
 338, 341; quoted, 92, 193; 
 reversal of government's policy, 
 193-194 
 
 "Winter Palace" of Dowager Em- 
 press, 9; destroyed by fire, 10 
 
 Witte, Count, at Portsmouth, 28, 30, 
 32; quoted, 31, 36 
 
 Wonga Wonga, The, 255 
 
 World War, see European War 
 
 Xavier, St. Francis, 293 
 
 Vancouver, 2, 266 
 Van Diemen's Straits, 253 
 Vasco da Gama, The, 257 
 Ventura, The, 258, 259 
 Verdun, 340 
 Vienna, 105 
 Vladivostok, 151, 350 
 
 Yangtse River, 189 
 
 Yangtse Valley, 62, 63, 120, 127, 
 
 243, 300, 311 
 Yalu River, 246 
 Yellow River, 128 
 Yellow Sea, 25 
 Yesso, 281 
 
372 INDEX 
 
 Yokohama, 39, 205, 252, 254, 262 Yuan Shih-k'ai (President of China), 
 
 Yokohama Bay, 134 92, 95, 96, 99, 124, 172, 216, 217, 
 
 Yomiuri, The, 188 302, 303-304, 305 ; becomes Em- 
 
 Yorck, Count, 10 peror, 303 ; died, 9 ; discredited, 
 
 Yorimoto, Emperor of Japan, 279 102 
 
 Yoshohito, Emperor of Japan, 281 
 
 Ypres, 226, 234, 235, 236 Zealandia, The, 257 
 
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