-^ci par) 
 
FOREWORD 
 
 the occasion of their official visit to New 
 York City, Viscount Kikujiro Ishii and 
 other members of the Imperial Japanese Com- 
 mission to the United States were entertained 
 on October 1, 1917, at Dinner at the St. Regis 
 Hotel by Oswald Garrison Villard. Editors or 
 publishers of many newspapers and magazines 
 of New York and various sections of the United 
 States were among the guests. The representa- 
 tives of Japan were thus brought into touch 
 with an influential portion of the American 
 press and a frank and cordial interchange of 
 views on American- Japanese relations took 
 place. The addresses are reproduced in the 
 order of their delivery by the following-named 
 
 speakers: 
 
 Oswald Garrison Villard - - - - Page 3-4 
 
 Viscount Kikujiro Ishii - - - - Page 4 
 
 Comptroller William A. Prendergast Page 5 
 Professor John Dewey ----- Page 5-6 
 Don C. Seitz - -- -- -- - Page 6-7 
 Ambassador Aimaro Sato - - - Page 7 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2017 with funding from 
 Columbia University Libraries 
 
 https://archive.org/details/japanamericaOOvill 
 
Address by Oswald Garrison Villard 
 
 President of The New York Evening Post Company 
 
 Viscount Ishii: 
 
 It is a great privilege to have even a 
 small part in welcoming your Excel- 
 lency and your distinguished associates 
 of this Commission to New York. The 
 official welcome you have just received 
 will have demonstrated beyond question 
 the earnest friendship of the imperial 
 city of America. But it seemed as if 
 your visit should not be allowed to pass 
 without an opportunity being given to 
 some of the makers of public opinion 
 through the press of the East of the 
 United States to receive a message 
 directly from you in this, the most vital 
 and most tragic period in the history of 
 modern nations. Hence this gathering. 
 
 The hour is the more opportune since 
 both nations are allies in the greatest 
 struggle of any time. Surely no moment 
 could be more propitious for the forging 
 of new ties, the strengthening of old 
 ones, and the removal of aU cau.ses of 
 misunderstanding or friction than the 
 present, when both nations have staked 
 their financial and material prosperity, 
 yes, their very all, upon the effort to safe- 
 guard small nations and to convert to de- 
 mocracy that Germany which is to-day 
 ruled by as unprincipled and wicked a 
 ring of militarists, aristocrats, and auto- 
 crats, as ever brought a proud and 
 mighty nation to utter shame and dis- 
 grace. 
 
 When one recalls what these men 
 have done to all humanity, the crimes 
 of which they and their dupes have been 
 guilty, what misery and suffering they 
 have caused in every nation on earth, one 
 trembles to think what fate will be theirs 
 if there be such a thing as retributive 
 justice. There are among us Americans 
 open differences of opinion as to the best 
 means of combating this German men- 
 ace to civilization, but I beg your Excel- 
 lency to take back to Japan the truth 
 that no single American who understands 
 and has at heart the love of American in- 
 stitutions, but is entirely and completely 
 determined that the abominable doctrine 
 of might above right shall never control 
 this world, and that the ethical standards 
 established as the rule of conduct among 
 honest and honorable men shall prevail 
 among all the nations of the earth. 
 
 We of the American press have been 
 asked not to comment upon the negotia- 
 tions lately in progress in Washington 
 or to speculate as to just what your Ex- 
 cellency took under consideration with 
 our Secretary of State. To this injunc- 
 tion we have loyally given heed. But it 
 is, I am sure, entirely permissible now 
 to voice the desire that in its every as- 
 pect your Mission has achieved the high- 
 est success, and to breathe the ardent 
 hope that the scope of your activity 
 
 touched not only upon our relations in 
 war, but upon those of peace. For I 
 wish your Excellency to realize that there 
 are among us American press men many 
 who have no more eagerly cherished de- 
 sire than toi utilize the existing close al- 
 liance to wipe out every cause for friction 
 and to so strengthen the foundations of 
 friendship between the two nations as 
 to render them safe, safe beyond the as- 
 saults of demagogues in office or of the 
 press, and safe beyond any sudden gusts 
 of popular passion. With some of us this 
 desire is second only to the ouestion of 
 a just and lasting peace as a prelude to 
 the building of a better and a nobler 
 world. 
 
 We echo with all earnestness the senti- 
 ments so nobly voiced by you at the 
 great dinner on Saturday evening, for 
 those journalists for whom I would speak 
 have been for some time laboring — to use 
 your own words — “to cast out the devil 
 of suspicion and distrust,’’ “to combat 
 misconception and fraud’’ in the relations 
 of Japan and the United States, and are 
 already at the task of rebuilding the “edi- 
 fice of mutual confidence.’’ To this we 
 shall devote ourselves the more zealously 
 because of your appeal and the more ef- 
 fectively because of your assurance that 
 Japan has no designs upon the territorial 
 integrity of China. 
 
 We feel the more deeply about all this 
 because some of our little-respected, or 
 our little-understanding colleagues, have 
 played the wicked and deplorable part of 
 striving to sow the seeds of discord. I 
 beg your ExceUency to believe that this 
 no more represents the whole of the hon- 
 est press of this land than it does the 
 wishes of the vast bulk of the American 
 people. The exceptions have, however, 
 impelled the rest of us to do aU within our 
 power to suggest ways and means to ren- 
 der secure the ties that bind. 'Thus, we 
 would have an interchange of visits be- 
 tween representatives of every class of 
 citizens. We would have established with- 
 in the United States an entirely free and 
 independent bureau of information so as 
 to make it possible to contradict at once 
 any such false dispatches as those which 
 on this side of the Pacific have repre- 
 sented the Japanese fleet as having de- 
 signs on Mexico and in Japan have por- 
 trayed the United States fleet as having 
 passed through the Panama Canal in full 
 war panoply bound for Yokohama. 
 
 We desire to have created a Japanese- 
 American commission, or a commission 
 from all the countries around the Pacific, 
 to meet on convenient ground and to 
 study and report upon all the problems 
 growing out of the contacts of the sever- 
 al peoples concerned; we desire to have 
 our own laws so amended that there shall 
 
 3 
 
 be no distinctions between aliens of any 
 nationalities and that all of foreign birth 
 who come to live permanently among us 
 shall acquire citizenship on equal terms. 
 We stand, in other words, for the histor- 
 ic American square deal to all comers — 
 however often it may have been honored 
 in the breach in the past. And, above all, 
 some of us desire complete disarmament 
 when peace comes abroad, that the cost 
 and the menace of great fleets and great 
 armies shall be removed once for all; in 
 order that men shall not rise, as they have 
 risen in the past in Congress, to declare 
 that our navy is built to combat Japan’s, 
 or in the Japanese Parliament to try to 
 bring about the fall of a Ministry because 
 the Japanese navy is not as great as that 
 of the United States. We wish, I repeat, 
 to remove every cause for suspicion and 
 distrust; every basis for the belief that 
 one nation is threatening the other. 
 
 This disarmament, some people are now 
 saying, is an idealisdc dream. But, Sir, it is 
 the idealists who are going to control this 
 world when the war is over, those who are 
 dreaming dreams of the brotherhood of 
 man, seeing visions of social regeneration, 
 of an equality among men and women 
 such as has never before been attempt- 
 ed on earth. Visionaries and dangerous 
 theorists, some of our practical politicians 
 are calling them, and he would be bold 
 indeed who would declare all their plans 
 to be practical or wise or to assert that 
 any clear-cut or approximately complete 
 chart of the new world in which we shall 
 live has been drawn. We must grope our 
 way into it. trying this route, essaying 
 that highway, tapping at each portal, try- 
 ing each gateway into the novel and the 
 unattempted. 
 
 We shall stumble, we may be swayed 
 by fears and passions, but forward 
 into the new domain we shall go. 
 That is as clear as the snow top 
 of Fujiyama on a cloudless day. When 
 almost every nation reports amaz- 
 ing Socialist gains, when Spain, Portu- 
 gal, Argentina, and even Australia have 
 been on the brink of revolution, and the 
 London Times is alarmed at the amazing 
 spread of social revolution in England, 
 it is no wonder that the world is asking 
 itself: Whither is this all leading to? No 
 man is wise enough to say; few can look 
 beyond the morrow. We can only see 
 that the world is in the grip of terrific 
 forces, of huge spiritual and economic 
 genii, as unwittingly unchained as those 
 in the Arabian Nights, and that, for bet- 
 ter or for worse, modern institutions are 
 being recast in the piould. The reassur- 
 ing thing is that power is going out of 
 the hands of the few into those of the 
 many; that the drift Is utterly away from 
 the European imperialism of the past and 
 
its diplomacy. To conquer small nation- 
 alities or to take slices out of any thinly 
 populated countries will be difficult in- 
 deed for any European nation hereafter. 
 
 That will mean a vast gain for peace 
 and good-will among nations, just as the 
 war has shown the absence of personal 
 antagonisms among the individual sol- 
 diers. All of which, your Exceliency, 
 bears directly upon the future relations 
 of differentiated races. They are bound 
 to improve, for among the great inarticu- 
 late masses there surely exists no other 
 feeling save one of good-will to the work- 
 ers of other climes and the desire to live 
 and let live, each in his own pursuit of 
 happiness. Our American masses will, 
 I am sure, approve of any step, at any 
 cost, to bring about better reiations be- 
 tween our nations, which goes below the 
 surface and seeks the basis for perma- 
 nent friendsliip not only in matters eco- 
 nomic and poiitical, but in what may be 
 inadequately described as the cultural 
 philosophy of the two nations, their deep 
 undei'lying beliefs and aspirations. I am 
 
 sure that all my hearers have been struck 
 as I have been by the devotion of Ameri- 
 can or English missionaries or residents 
 abroad to the peoples among whom they 
 have lived for a considerable period of 
 time. Thus, they love the Turks, despite 
 all the crimes committed in their name, 
 and those who really and thoroughly 
 know Chinese, Egyptians, and Japanese, 
 and others whose difficult languages are 
 a bar to easy intercourse, love them, hon- 
 or them, and cherish the desire to see 
 them rise steadily to power and self- 
 knowledge and true freedom. The task 
 for us of the press who are dedicated to 
 friendly relations the world over is to 
 bring home to our people the meaning of 
 this, which is the essential oneness of 
 humanity whenever we take the time 
 
 really to know others as we know our- 
 
 selves. 
 
 To this idealism for the future there 
 is coming, I believe, a great army of re- 
 inforcement as soon as the war is over. 
 I mean the survivors of the trenches, the 
 hale and hearty as well as the blinded and 
 mutilated. There is every indication that 
 
 ■K -K -K 
 
 they will return determined that new 
 ways be found of organizing the worid 
 and of settling its differences of opinions 
 and aspirations. It is not possible to be- 
 lieve that after the sacrifices they have 
 made they will be on the side of race 
 prejudice or of hate, of suspicion, of dis- 
 trust, nor of the spirit of murder as we 
 have seen it organized by the German 
 General Staff. 
 
 Whether this opinion be right or wrong, 
 your Excellency, I beg of you to re- 
 turn to Japan in the belief and with the 
 hope that the outcome of this whole world 
 struggle is certain to make for human 
 fellowship. And will you not also say 
 to your countrymen in your own Eastern 
 land, the land of extraordinary ability 
 and power, of the proud spirit that pre- 
 fers to perish rather than to suffer dis- 
 honor, the land of exquisite art and rarest 
 beauty, that there are some in America 
 who have no higher wish than that it 
 shall be said of them: They were of the 
 belief in the brotherhood of man eind 
 therefore they were at all times friends 
 and lovers of Japan. 
 
 Address by Viscount Kikujiro Ishii 
 
 of the Imperial Japanese Commission to the United States 
 
 Mr. Villard and Gentlemen: Only 
 
 such a host as you among a multitude of 
 hosts and a wealth of hospitality could 
 have realized the particular pleasure it 
 would afford me to be your guest to- 
 night at a gathering of this character. 
 You are giving me an opportunity to 
 express my sense of deep appreciation 
 of the part played by the newspaners of 
 New York and of America in this won- 
 derful reception to me and my associates 
 of this Mission. It would be unwise for 
 me to waste your time, and particularly 
 unwise to talk too much, especially in 
 this distinguished presence. I am not 
 going to bore you with repetition of what 
 I have already said in public speech in 
 many places. I have endeavored to speak 
 frankly and plainly at all times, and 
 while I regret shortcomings of language 
 and expression, I have done my utmost 
 to convey the truth and nothing but 
 the truth to the people of America. I 
 am indeed deeply grateful to the press 
 of this country for the splendid and 
 wholehearted support and consistent 
 courtesy extended to us. Gentlemen, the 
 spirit is willing, but my tongue is weak. 
 
 I cannot to the full extent tell you of 
 my appreciation, because your language 
 fails me, and certainly my language would 
 fail to satisfy you if I attempted to use 
 it here. I have endeavored since land- 
 ing in America some seven weeks ago to 
 avoid the use of idle words or the putting 
 forward of ideas capable of a double 
 meaning or which could be misconstrued. 
 In this connection, let me ask a favor at 
 your hands. There is one explanation I 
 
 would like to make here before you, and 
 request you to transmit to the people 
 of this country. In a speech delivered 
 on Saturday night I made particular ref- 
 erence to the policy of Japan with regard 
 to China. This reference took the form 
 of a repetition of the pledge and promise 
 that Japan would not violate the political 
 independence or territorial integrity of 
 China; would at all times regard the high 
 principle of the open door and equal op- 
 portunity. Now I find that this utterance 
 of mine is taken as the enunciation of a 
 “Monroe Doctrine in Asia.” I wairt to 
 make it very clear to you that the appli- 
 cation of the term “Monroe Doctrine” to 
 this policy and principle, voluntarily out- 
 lined and pledged by me, is inaccurate. 
 
 There is this fundamental difference 
 between the “Monroe Doctrine” of the 
 United States as to Central and South 
 America and the enunciation of Japan’s 
 attitude toward China. In the first there 
 is on the part of the United States no 
 engagement or promise, white in the oth- 
 er Japan voluntarily announces that 
 Japan will herself engage not to violate 
 the political or territorial integrity of 
 her neighbor, and to observe the principle 
 of the open door and equal opportunity, 
 asking at the same time other nations 
 to respect these principles. 
 
 Therefore, gentlemen, you will mark 
 the wide difference and agree with me, I 
 am sure, that the use of the term is some- 
 what loose and misleading. I ask you 
 to note this with no suggestion that I can 
 or any one else does question the policy 
 or attitude of your country, which we well 
 
 4 
 
 know will always deal fairly and honor- 
 ably with other nations. 
 
 As you must have noticed, I have per- 
 sistently struck one note every time I 
 have spoken. It has been the note of 
 warning against German intrigue in 
 America and in Japan — ^intrigue which 
 has extended over a period of more than 
 ten years. I am not going to weary 
 you with a repetition of this squalid story 
 of plots, conceived and fostered by the 
 agents of Germany, but I solemnly re- 
 peat the warning here in this most dis- 
 tinguished gathering, so thoroughly rep- 
 resentative of the highest ideals of Amer- 
 ican journalism. 
 
 In my speeches at various places I have 
 endeavored to speak frankly on all points 
 at issue or of interest at this time. There 
 are, of course, some things which cannot 
 be openly discussed, because of a wise 
 embargo upon unwise disclosures, but I 
 am confident that from this time forward 
 we will be able to effectively cooperate 
 in all matters tending to secure a victory 
 in this struggle which means so much 
 for all of us, and that throughout all the 
 years to come, differences of opinion or 
 difficulties arising between our two coun- 
 tries will be settled, as all such questions 
 and difficulties can be settled, between 
 close friends and partners. 
 
 I thank you, sir, for your hospitality 
 and for your courtesy. I assure you, 
 gentlemen, again that we appreciate more 
 than I can express the high considera- 
 tion. the patriotism, and the broad and 
 friendly spirit with which you have treat- 
 ed this Mission from Japan. 
 

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Address by William A. Prendergast 
 
 Comptroller of the City of New York 
 
 Mr. Chairman, Viscount Ishii, Gentle- 
 men of the Commission, your Excellency, 
 and Gentlemen: Our host upon this oc- 
 casion has asked me to say a word of 
 welcome to Viscount Ishii and associate 
 members of the Commission in the name 
 of the great city of New York. During 
 the last few days you have heard from 
 the city’s Chief Executive, in phrase 
 chaste and of superior dignity, of your 
 cordial welcome by the city. 
 
 It would seem to me that it is hardly 
 necessary even to attempt to repeat at 
 this time anything that has already been 
 said to you, or to try to further impress 
 upon your minds the very great pleasure 
 and honor and happiness that it gives 
 New York to have you as its guests; and 
 this welcome has had a peculiar cordial- 
 ity. We have, it is true, welcomed to 
 this city during the last few months the 
 representatives of other nations — all of 
 them our allies; but I think I can say 
 that with all those nations there was a 
 somewhat different relation from that 
 which has existed with yours. To most of 
 them we were bound from time imme- 
 morial, by ties of blood and very close 
 interest and association. Yours is a new- 
 er connection; and it is true that there 
 have been times when there has existed 
 misunderstanding regarding the real at- 
 titude of Japan toward America, and 
 America toward Japan; but this misun- 
 derstanding never arose from any in- 
 herent belief upon the part of the great 
 
 mass of our people as to what your atti- 
 tude re.ally was. It was, as has so often 
 been said upon these ceremonial occa- 
 sions during the last few days, due en- 
 tirely to the disposition of malefactors of 
 the press, if I may say so [laughter], and 
 one principal malefactor in particular 
 [great laughter] — fabrications prepared 
 for the express purpose of creating dis- 
 turbance of mind and understanding and 
 misconception and doubt and distrust be- 
 tween these peoples; but it has been 
 splendidly shown to you, since your com- 
 ing to this country seven weeks ago, that 
 everything of that kind that has been 
 said has been untrue, and that upon the 
 part of the American people there does 
 exist and has existed a feeling not only 
 of cordial friendship but of great, intense 
 admiration for what your nation repre- 
 sents, and what it has done for civiliza- 
 tion in the last fifty or sixty years. 
 
 Now, Viscount Ishii, might I at this 
 time sound a note which may be some- 
 what contrary to that which has been the 
 dominant idea of our discussions upon 
 these occasions? We have treated, and 
 naturally, of war. That is the thought 
 that is uppermost in our minds. It is 
 the thing that is in the thought and the 
 mind of man, woman, and child — war. I 
 can say detestable war, because war is 
 detestable, and we are fighting this war 
 to-day for the purpose of driving out 
 war permanently. That is the great ob- 
 ject of our entering this war, or one of 
 
 -K -K -K 
 
 the great objects, and I am sure that 1\ 
 is also one of yours. It was a great 
 relief to us — a great relief to the civil- 
 ized world — that when this war broke out 
 you were in your position of primacy up- 
 on the Pacific, there to guard effectively 
 and effectually against the diplomatic 
 depredations that might have taken place 
 if Germany had been permitted to do as 
 she was disposed to do in China. For 
 the service that you rendered in that 
 respect the world is indeed your debtor. 
 But the idea that I think we should also 
 have in mind, as well as winning the war, 
 as well as prosecuting it to a successful 
 finish, is this: While we are engaged in 
 this war, let us realize the ties that 
 bind. Let us realize that brothers in war 
 should be brothers in peace; that what 
 we have at interest in the war we will 
 also have at interest in times of peace; 
 and during this struggle, when we are 
 so close together, when we are fraterniz- 
 ing, as brothers should, when we are feel- 
 ing toward each other as brothers should, 
 let us lay the groundwork of a great com- 
 mercial relation that no contingency or 
 exigency will ever disturb in the future, 
 the groundwork of a commercial rela- 
 tion that will draw us so close together 
 that we will realize the genuine ties of 
 brotherhood. That, I think, is one of 
 the great desires of the American people, 
 and that is one of the great desires that 
 New York expresses to you, at the con- 
 clusion of your happy visit to us. 
 
 Address by John Dewey 
 
 Professor of Philosophy in Columbia University 
 
 Some one remarked that the best way 
 to unite all the nations on this globe 
 would be an attack from some other 
 planet. In the face of such an alien 
 enemy, people would respond with a sense 
 of their unity of interest and purpose. 
 We are the next thing to that at the 
 present time. Before a common menace. 
 North and South America, the Occident 
 and Orient have done an unheard-of 
 thing, a wonderful thing, a thing which, 
 it may well be, future history will point 
 to as the most significant thing in these 
 days of wonderful happenings. They 
 have joined forces amply and intimately 
 in a common cause with one another and 
 with the European nations which were 
 most directly threatened. What a few 
 dreamers hoped might happen in the 
 course of some slow-coming century has 
 become an accomplished fact in a few 
 swift years. In spite of geographical 
 distance, unlike speech, diverse religion. 
 
 and hitherto independent aims, nations 
 from every continent have formed what 
 for the time being is nothing less than 
 a world state, an immense cooperative 
 action in behalf of civilization. 
 
 It is safe to say that, with all its pre- 
 paredness, Germany never anticipated 
 this result. Even now the fact is so 
 close to us that even we, who have been 
 brought together, are too much engaged 
 in the duties which the union imposes 
 to realize the force of the piew and 
 unique creation of a union of peoples, yes, 
 of continents. The imagination is not yet 
 capable of taking it in. 
 
 It has been more than once noted that 
 Germany has exhibited an extraordinary 
 spectacle to the world. It has stood for 
 organization at home and disorganiza- 
 tion abroad, for cooperative effort among 
 its own people and for division and hos- 
 tility among all other peoples. All 
 through the earlier years of the war the 
 
 5 
 
 intellectuals of Germany appealed for 
 sympathy in this country because of 
 what Germany had done in the way of 
 social legislatipn and administration to 
 promote the unity of all classes, because 
 of its efficiency in organization, because 
 of the intelligent efforts it had made to 
 secure domestic prosperity. But, at the 
 same time, as events have since only too 
 clearly demonstrated, it was bending ev- 
 ery energy of corrupt and hateful in- 
 trigue to disunite the American people 
 among themselves and to incite suspicion, 
 jealousy, envy, and even active hostility 
 between the American nation and other 
 nations, like Mexico and Japan, with 
 whom we had every reason to live in 
 amity and no reasons of weight for any- 
 thing but amity. In the light of this 
 exhibition, German love of organization 
 and cooperative unity at home gains a 
 sinister meaning. It stands convicted ol 
 falsity because born of a malicious con- 
 
spiracy against the rest of the world. 
 It loved unity and harmony, not for 
 themselves, but simply as a means of 
 bringing about that dominion of Ger- 
 many over the world of which its re- 
 morseless and treacherous efforts to di- 
 vided other peoples are the other half. 
 
 The rest of the world, of the once neu- 
 tral world, was, it must be confessed, 
 slow to awake to Germany's plots and 
 purposes. They seemed fantastic, unreal, 
 in their unbridled lust for power and 
 their incredibly bad faith. It was es- 
 pecially hard for us in this country who 
 have never been trained to identify our 
 loyalty to our own country with hatred 
 of any other to realize that Germany’s 
 genius for efficiency and organization had 
 become a menace to domestic union and 
 international friendliness over the world. 
 But finally in North America, as in South 
 America, and in Asia, when the case 
 became too clear for further doubt, Ger- 
 many’s challenge was met. Against Ger- 
 many’s efforts to disunite there arose a 
 world united in endeavor and achievement 
 on a scale unprecedented in the history of 
 this globe, a scale too vast not to endure 
 and in enduring to make the future his- 
 tory of international relationships some- 
 thing very different from their past history. 
 In struggling by cunning and corrup- 
 tion to separate and divide other peoples, 
 Germany has succeeded in drawing them 
 together with a rapidity and an intimacy 
 
 almost beyond belief. Nations thus 
 brought together in community of feeling 
 and action will not easily fall apart, even 
 though the occasion which brought them 
 together passes, as, pray God, it will soon 
 pass. The Germany which seems finally 
 to be breaking up within has furnished 
 the rest of the world with a cement 
 whose uses will not easily be forgotten. 
 
 Formal alliances, set treaties, legal ar- 
 rangements for arbitration and concilia- 
 tion, leagues and courts of nations, all 
 have their importance. But, gentlemen, 
 their importance is secondary. They are 
 effects rather than causes, symptoms ra- 
 ther than forces. You may have them 
 all, and if nations have not discovered 
 that their permanent interests are in 
 niutuality and interchange, they will be 
 evaded or overridden. They may be 
 lacking, but if the vital sap of reciprocal 
 tiust and friendly intercourse is flowing 
 through the arteriiis of commerce and 
 the public press, they will come in due 
 season as naturally and inevitably as the 
 trees put forth their leaves when their 
 day of spring has come. It is our prob- 
 lem and our duty, I repeat, especially of 
 you gentlemen of diplomacy and of what 
 I shall venture to call the even more 
 powerful instrument cf good will and un- 
 derstanding, the public press, to turn 
 cur immediate and temporary relation for 
 purposes of war into an enduring and 
 solid connection for all of the sweet and 
 constructive offices of that peace which 
 
 must some day again dawn upon a 
 wracked and troubled world. 
 
 Where diversity is greatest, there is 
 the greatest opportunity for a fruitful co- 
 operation which will be magnificently 
 helpful to those who cooperate. This 
 meeting this evening is a signal evidence 
 of the coming together of the portions 
 of the earth which for countless cen- 
 turies went their own way in isolation, 
 developing great civilizations, each in 
 their own way. Now in the fulness of 
 days, the Orient and the Occident, the 
 United States and Japan, have drawn to- 
 gether to engage in faith in themselves 
 and in each other in the work of building 
 up a society of nations each free to de- 
 velop its own national life and each 
 bound in helpful intercourse with every 
 other. May every influence which would 
 sow suspicion and misunderstanding be 
 accursed, and every kindly power that 
 furthers enduring understanding and re- 
 ciprocal usefulness be blest. May this 
 meeting stand not only as a passing sym- 
 bol, but as a lasting landmark of the 
 truth that among nations as among men 
 of good will there shall be peace, not a 
 peace of isolation or bare toleration 
 which has become impossible in this 
 round world of ours, not a peace based 
 on mutual fear and mutual armament, 
 but a virile peace in which emulation in 
 commerce, science, and the arts bespeaks 
 two great nations that respect each other 
 because they respect themselves. 
 
 X- 
 
 Address by Don C. Seitz 
 
 Business Manager of the New York World 
 
 I think the visit of the Japanese Com- 
 mission has been the most impressive 
 among all of those who have come to 
 us from the other parts of the world 
 as the outcome of the great war, and I 
 think, too, it has a great purpose, and 
 is bound to have a great result, because, 
 if you will recall carefully, you will find 
 that the other gentlemen all came 
 to the United States to get something; 
 but these gentlemen have come to give 
 us something. 
 
 There is a great deal to be learned in 
 the Orient, and I know it Is a trite 
 phrase to say that everything is up.side 
 down in the East, that all Oriental ideas 
 are opposite those held by ourselves, and 
 in some ways this is an improvement. 
 There is also a perspicacity among 
 Orientals which we lack ourselves. Only 
 recently I had to sit for nearly an hour 
 and listen to the efforts of the former 
 Attorney-General of the United States 
 to explain and vindicate the Monroe Doc- 
 trine, and here Viscount Ishii, in the 
 midst of many affairs, sizes it up in a 
 few words, and says that our fundamen- 
 tal fault is that we will allow no one to 
 lick our neighbors but ourselves. 
 
 The East has often been advertised 
 as changeless. This is wrong. Matthew 
 Arnold, you know, wrote a celebrated 
 verse in which he said something like 
 this; that “The East bowed low before 
 the blast, in silent proud disdain; she let 
 the legions thunder past, and turned to 
 thought again.” 
 
 Now, take it from me, they do more 
 thinking in an hour than we do in a 
 week in the United States. We very 
 largely jump at conclusions — and in the 
 East they think. 
 
 People who speak about the Japanese 
 nation as a race of little people doing 
 little things, are misled. A small coun- 
 try, it preserves its proportions and it 
 does nothing without thinking. We do 
 many things without thinking, and often 
 regret it afterwards. These men coming 
 here teach us of our wrong conclusions, 
 of our ease in accepting false premises, 
 and we should change our habits. 
 
 Foreign affairs have never received de- 
 cent treatment in the American press of 
 recent years, because our own have been 
 more interesting, and we have not in- 
 volved ourselves with the troubles of 
 
 6 
 
 other races. Now that other nations have 
 brought their troubles to us, we are com- 
 pelled to know something, and I think 
 we will. The newspapers seem to me a 
 little slow in grasping, and slow in In- 
 forming our people, and our own Gov- 
 ernment has been remiss in not letting 
 us know more, and the press, I think, 
 has been a little too insistent in regard 
 to domestic affairs. We have accepted 
 the excuse of war time to cover many 
 things that we ought to know. If you 
 were to receive in your office the foreign 
 publications from Japan, such as the 
 Japan Advertiser and the Japan Chron- 
 icle, and perceive the care and intelli- 
 gence with which world affairs are dis- 
 cussed and made plain to that very lim- 
 ited constituency, you would feel rather 
 ashamed of your editorial exhibitions. 
 You would be surprised at the amount of 
 space you waste in matters that are of 
 no particular concern in a time like this. 
 
 I think it would be a good idea if every 
 publisher and editor here would subscribe 
 to either one or the other, or both of 
 those publications, and make somebody 
 in the office read them (laughter). You 
 know we have in New York city a circu- 
 
lation of about a million and a quarter 
 copies of foreign-language publications; 
 and I never yet found an editor in New 
 York who knew a single thing that was 
 printed in one of them. Now, they may 
 be saying all kinds of things about us 
 and for us and against us, and we ought 
 to know something, and we decline to 
 do it. 
 
 You know, some of the peculiarities of 
 Japanese politics, and the way they look 
 at things strike us oddly. I was interest- 
 ed in a recent episode in Japan. Mr. 
 Ozaki, whom some of you have met in 
 New York, and who was for a long time 
 Mayor of Tokio, and leader of democratic 
 thought in Japan, has recently gone far- 
 ther, perhaps, than even his original plat- 
 form policy, and not long ago one of his 
 constituents, a humble shoemaker, feel- 
 ing that his idol had gone far beyond 
 the limits, killed himself as a protest 
 against the democratic thoughts of his 
 leader. (Laughter.) I was wondering 
 how great a mortality would follow in our 
 present Mayoralty campaign, if this prac- 
 tice were zealously carried out. (Laugh- 
 ter.) How many children would have a 
 father a day after the campaign got well 
 under way? (Laughter.) 
 
 We take things for granted here that 
 they will not take for granted in the Far 
 East. 
 
 Well, when the Japanese came forward 
 at the beginning of this war to join their 
 first ally, England, and their later allies. 
 
 ourselves, people said they did it without 
 risk. Why, gentlemen, no nation in the 
 world ever took such a risk. Japan is a 
 land without surplus, a little land, where 
 people live crowded between the moun- 
 tains and the sea; where, unless the soil 
 bears three crops a year, people starve; 
 where, if the fisher fleets fail to come in 
 regularly every other day, there is little 
 to eat; where everything has to be watch- 
 ed; where nothing can be wasted, and 
 where the population grows apace. If 
 they were to be blockaded, or shut in in 
 any fashion, Japan would starve quicker 
 than any nation in the world. Remote- 
 ness is not a defence in these times, as 
 we ourselves are about to demonstrate. 
 Everybody is within reach; and so they 
 went into this matter, not selfishly, but 
 with a high idealism ; and when we learn- 
 ed through the secret dispatches recently 
 that the great German Empire thought 
 so ill of the great Eastern Empire, as to 
 make it appear that it could break its 
 word, we then and there were able to 
 write for once the true value of German 
 knowledge of world affairs. We were 
 then able for the first time to perceive 
 that there had been a most lamentable 
 breakdown of intellectual and moral force 
 in Germany; and that, gentlemen, is the 
 thing we have to guard against ourselves, 
 because this war, after all, is not going to 
 be won by force of arms. It is going to 
 be won by the sufferings of the non-com- 
 batants, and by the intellectual and moral 
 
 -K -K -K 
 
 forces, when they once rally, and put on 
 the proper pressure; and what we have 
 got to look for, is a rally of this Intel- 
 lectual and moral force, and it would not 
 surprise me in the least, if the greatest 
 factor of it all came from Japan. 
 
 An observer who came recently from 
 Europe said to me that the most danger- 
 ous thing about the situation was not 
 German militarism, but the breakdown 
 of intellectual strength in the chancel- 
 leries of Europe. He said he had not 
 found anywhere among all the countries 
 and in all the Cabinets men of strength 
 of mind enough to take hold of this 
 hideous disease and bring it to some kind 
 of an end. He understood it must wear 
 itself out in the blood of the people, in 
 the suffering of the innocent, and in the 
 destruction of property. 
 
 Supposing out of the East should come 
 a ray of light that leads into the past. 
 One thing, at least, has come. We in 
 the United States have swept away for- 
 ever this miserable doctrine of distrust 
 that has come forward day after day to 
 puzzle and vex us. When I was in 
 Japan the Premier said to me: “What 
 have we done that should arouse this 
 suspicion, these endless attacks? We have 
 met every request you made, and kept 
 every promise we have made. Where does 
 it come from? What have we done and 
 what have you done?” And I could not 
 answer him. We know now. We have 
 located it. 
 
 Address by Aimaro Sato 
 
 Ambassador from Japan 
 
 A friend of mine was speaking to me 
 of the author of “Paradise Lost” the other 
 day. 
 
 Some one asked the poet if he were go- 
 ing to instruct his daughters in the dif- 
 ferent languages of which he was a 
 master. Milton turned upon his friend 
 sharply: 
 
 “No, sir,” said he, with a grim and 
 frigid emphasis; “one tongue is enough 
 for any woman.” 
 
 To-night, before this genial and bril- 
 liant company, I find that one tongue is 
 a good deal more than enough for one 
 mere man, especially when he happens 
 to be a Japanese in the diplomatic service, 
 and more especially when the tongue hap- 
 pens to be the English language. 
 
 The fact, however, that I am actually 
 upon my feet testifies, with something of 
 a touching eloquence, to the witchery cf 
 the hours, to the magic of your friendly 
 presences, and, above all, to the com- 
 pelling lure of the theme of which our 
 hearts are filled to overflowing to-night — 
 the bringing together of the two great 
 peoples on either side of the Pacific to a 
 heart-to-heart understanding. Once that 
 is ours, the German intrigues will be but 
 an empty jest, and the flaming yellow- 
 
 journal propaganda as futile as the poi- 
 son-gas attack upon the svm and the 
 stars. 
 
 We are gathered here — and my honored 
 colleague. Viscount Ishii, is with us — for 
 a modest bit of work which is nothing 
 short of wiping the Pacific Ocean from 
 off the map of spiritual and intellectual 
 unity and community between the United 
 States and Japan. We have come to- 
 gether as good neighbors, you of America 
 and we of Japan. But we have been that 
 since the days of your Townsend Harris. 
 To-night we sit side by side as something 
 more than mere friends — we are soldiers 
 of the common cause. We are to fight 
 for the realization of one dream for the 
 defence of the one and same political 
 ideal. Gentlemen, the Empire of the Ex- 
 treme East and the greatest of earth’s 
 republics are now comrades in arms 
 against the common foe. And that is 
 something new. For the first time since 
 the Lord spoke the world into being the 
 Stars and Stripes will garnish the battle- 
 red skyline side by side with the sun flag 
 of Nippon in a world- wide war upon mili- 
 tant autocracy. That is a fact big enough 
 for history to take note of. 
 
 Time was — ^and it has been long and 
 
 7 
 
 weary, too — when black intrigues and 
 blatant propaganda against the Ameri- 
 can-Japanese amity lorded it over the 
 popular sentiment of your people. In 
 the very days when Japan was doing her 
 bit for the happy consummation of the 
 Anglo-American Arbitration Treaty, there 
 were people and press here who painted 
 Japan as the arch-fiend, scheming to 
 force the British Empire to back her in 
 a wanton war against the United States. 
 Those were trying days. We bore them 
 in silence. We bore them, happy in the 
 profound confidence in the ultimate tri- 
 umph of the American sense of justice 
 and of right. We bore them with the 
 conviction that no clouds, however black, 
 however stormy, had ever succeeded in 
 putting out the sun; that the sunlight is 
 ever the brighter the blacker the storm. 
 But that time, thank Heaven, is no more. 
 
 And it is with a throbbing pleasure I 
 note that the coming of your guest of 
 honor to-night and his fellow commis- 
 sioners seems to mark the turn of the 
 tide in the American-Japanese relations. 
 But what makes the visit of the present 
 Mission epochal is not what it has al- 
 ready wrought upon the sentiment of the 
 people of America. The real significance 
 of the Ishii Mission is its effect upon 
 the to-morrow, upon the things that are 
 to come. And I beg you to permit me 
 to join you in hailing the visit of the 
 Mission as a promise and prophecy of 
 the coming of a saner day, when there 
 shall be no East and no West in the 
 wider vision of international peace. 
 
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TED for that con- 
 stantly increasing class 
 of readers who believe that 
 only by knowing both sides 
 of a question ean they rea- 
 sonably hold to either. 
 
 More Than a Newspaper 
 A National Institution