Cl 
 
 
 The Church 
 
 and 
 
 International Peace 
 
 A Series of Papers by the Trustees of 
 THE CHURCH PEACE UNION 
 
 IX 
 
 America and the Asiatic 
 
 World 
 
 by 
 
 Professor Shailer Mathews 
 
 THE CHURCH PEACE UNION 
 70 Fifth Avenue 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
The Church and International Peace 
 
 A uniform series of papers by the Trustees of The 
 Church Peace Union, treating the problems of war and 
 peace from the point of view of religion, and especially 
 emphasizing the message the Church should have for the 
 world in this time of war. 
 
 ALREADY PUBLISHED 
 
 1. The Cause of the War, by Rev. Charles E. Jefferson, D.D. 
 
 2. The Midnight Cry, by Rt. Rev. David H. Greer, D.D. 
 
 3. The Scourge of Militarism, by Rev. Peter Ainslie, D.D. 
 
 4. Europe’s War, America’s Warning, by Rev. Charles S. Mac- 
 
 farland, Ph.D. 
 
 5. The Way to Disarm, by Hamilton Holt, LL.D. 
 
 6. The Church’s Mission as to War and Peace, by Jimius B. 
 
 Remensnyder, D.D., LL.D. 
 
 7. Might or Meekness, by Rev. William Pierson Merrill, D.D. 
 
 8. The Church and the Ideal, by Rt. Rev. William Lawrence, D.D. 
 
 9. America and the Asiatic World, by Professor Shailer Mathews 
 
 IN PREPARATION 
 
 1. America, Christianity and Peace, by James Cardinal Gibbons 
 
 2. After the War—What? By Rev. Francis E. Clark, D.D. 
 
 3. The United Church and the Terms of Peace, by Rev. Frederick 
 
 Lynch, D.D. 
 
 4. Adequate Armaments, by Prof. William I. Hull. 
 
America and the Asiatic World 
 
 Address by Professor Shailer Mathews, President of the Federal 
 Council of Churches of Christ in America, at the Dinner of the 
 Japan Society, the New York Peace Society, the 
 Church Peace Union, and the Federal Council of 
 Churches of Christ in America, at the Hotel 
 Astor, Monday Evening, April 19, 1915 
 
 On my arrival in Japan I found myself suddenly trans¬ 
 ferred into a situation where I was forced to see life in terms 
 not of individuals, or even of cities, but in terms of nations 
 and of epochs. A man cannot go through that sort of experi¬ 
 ence, even though it last for only a month, without seriously 
 inquiring as to the forces upon which history must ultimately 
 be based. Our mission to Japan brought home to me not 
 only the seriousness of the particular task to which I was 
 assigned, but also the question as to the practicability of the 
 message which I was to deliver. To bear a message of good¬ 
 will from Christians of one nation to another nation through 
 its Christians is either a work of supererogation or a proclama¬ 
 tion of a new basis of international policy. The query as to 
 the ability of religion to accomplish that which we have told 
 people it can accomplish is one of those explorative questions 
 which test not only one’s faith but also one’s ability to see 
 facts in their true perspective. It is hard enough to see the 
 meaning of life even in the circles touched in our daily routine, 
 but when we find ourselves asked to measure the meaning 
 of life in the reciprocal relations of groups of hundreds of 
 millions of peoples, we cannot avoid feeling that we are in 
 the midst of a universe from which it is impossible to escape. 
 In our local religious and political relations we can easily 
 pass from one town or state to another town or state; we can 
 hope to correct our misfortunes, our mistakes, and even our 
 failures, but when we find ourselves in the grip of civiliza¬ 
 tions and empires and are forced to pronounce upon the 
 wisdom of policies, the effects of which for good or ill are 
 unescapable, a level-eyed honesty and a well balanced religious 
 
 3 
 
faith become imperative. Face to face with conditions which, 
 whether changing or permanent, are to help determine the 
 course of the world’s history, I was forced to test my faith 
 in the Gospel by its applicability to history in the large; and 
 the question which the conditions I shall presently attempt 
 to describe continually forced upon me is the question which 
 nation after nation itself must confront: Is our professed 
 belief in the finality of the ideals of the Christian religion 
 justifiable, or must we abandon reliance upon spiritual forces 
 for reliance upon physical force? 
 
 As a representative of the Federal Council of the Churches 
 of Christ in America, it was to this moral and religious issue 
 I was called to direct myself. In the nature of the case 
 neither the Christian embassy nor the Federal Council could 
 enter politics, either national or international; neither could be 
 pro-Japanese or anti-Japanese; pro-China or anti-China. Our 
 duty while in Japan was to learn all we could of the Japanese 
 attitude and situation and do what we could to help the 
 Japanese to understand America’s friendship and the intricacy 
 of the world-situation of which the American-Japanese ques¬ 
 tion is one aspect. 
 
 Now that we are in America I understand the situation 
 to be unchanged in these regards. The Federal Council is 
 neither pro-Japanese, pro-Chinese nor pro-Asiatic. As the 
 representative of the churches its effort is to help apply 
 intelligently the principles of the Gospel to international 
 policies. 
 
 For myself I resolutely refuse to be regarded as the 
 advocate of any foreign nation. But as a Christian I count 
 nothing alien to Christian idealism, and as a representative of 
 the Christian churches of America I count no duty higher 
 or more immediately pressing than that of evangelizing 
 foreign policies. 
 
 We are amazed at the failure of the ideal elements of 
 civilization to prevent nations lapsing into barbarism rein¬ 
 forced by scientific discoveries. But appalling as is the 
 cataclysm in Europe, its elements are simpler than those of 
 
 4 
 
the situation which the world faces in Asia. There, two halves 
 of a world, each with its millenia of development, for the 
 first time actually face each other. The impact of the Western 
 civilization upon the Asiatic world has brought conflict of 
 ideas in religion and in economics such as the world has 
 never seen. The effect of this impact is dependent upon so 
 complicated a mass of causes as to bewilder the most sanguine 
 social prophet. The question as to the final court of appeal 
 in social evolution is almost shouted at any man who, detach¬ 
 ing himself from the attitude of the tourist or of the provincial 
 critic of foreign affairs, undertakes to estimate the tendencies 
 of the actual situation which is developing in Asia and 
 particularly in Japan, the first country which has seriously 
 undertaken to combine Asiatic and Western civilization. 
 
 I doubt if any man is really capable of accurately presenting 
 the questions which arise from this impact of civilizations 
 and histories, and I can claim for myself only the worth of 
 any honest effort to see things as they really are, to judge 
 them in the light of such historical and sociological experience 
 as I may have, and to detach myself from everything that is 
 novel and picturesque in the interest of an understanding of 
 things in the large. There is, I am convinced, need of great 
 caution in proposing social panaceas, even forms of religion, 
 for the situation which is so rapidly developing in Japan and 
 which will come so inevitably in China. Our first duty is 
 that of investigation rather than of dogmatic prescription or 
 criticism. But the findings of such investigation must be 
 susceptible of statement in terms of tendency toward 
 reasonable idealism or toward war. And that alternative is 
 our primary interest as religious and moral persons. 
 
 I. 
 
 The first element of the present world-sit uaiion as 
 embodied in Japan is the grooving solidarity of world- 
 civilization. 
 
 The rapid development of japan is amazing even in the 
 
 5 
 
eyes of one who has shared in the growth of the United 
 States; but this rapidity, sensational as it is in itself, is of 
 secondary significance. It is growth by appropriation not 
 by evolution. It is therefore only an introductory stage to that 
 of assimilation and consequent transformation. Western 
 civilization was not produced but taken over by Japan, as it 
 were, ready-made. Financial institutions, industrial organiza¬ 
 tions, constitutional precedents, which Europe and America 
 have evolved at the cost of innumerable blunders and infinite 
 suffering, have been appropriated by Japan practically with¬ 
 out a struggle. When one compares, for instance, the Satsuma 
 revolution with the generations of struggles which in England 
 made constitutional monarchy an actual reality, it will be 
 evident that modern Japan knows nothing of the real agony 
 of producing political conceptions. In point of fact Japan 
 has contributed as yet no significant conception to modern 
 theories of the state. Similarly in the case of Japanese 
 industrial and financial institutions—they, like the Japanese 
 military system, are the products of centuries of development 
 in which Japan had no part, but the results of which she has 
 readily appropriated. But Japan is more than superficially 
 Western. It is difficult to see that these elements of social 
 life differ in any significant particular from those in Europe 
 and America. The railroads, factories, educational systems, 
 military establishments, banks, insurance companies, even 
 baseball, are importations in process of assimilation. 
 
 True, this occidentalizing has not yet appreciably affected 
 the life of millions of Japanese who live outside the cities, 
 and time alone can show how powerful is the inertia of the 
 institutions which constitute Japan’s social inheritance from 
 her past. But one thing seems to me to be beyond question: 
 So far as dominating reconstructive forces are concerned, 
 Japan is no more Oriental than is Germany or the United 
 States. It will only be a few years before every man and 
 ' Oman of Japan will be educated to all intents and purposes 
 like Europeans, will trade and manufacture and found banks 
 
 6 
 
like Americans. Their mental processes will no longer be 
 Oriental, in the sense usually given that term, but they will 
 be Western—members of the community of the modern social 
 order, facing with us the problems of economic, political and 
 spiritual life. When this result of present tendencies has 
 been reached, it will be outstandingly true that the new 
 Asiatic civilization will not be the result of mere imitation, 
 but an organic transformation in which the permanent values 
 of Asiatic as well as of Western civilization are preserved. 
 Japan has already thus assimilated Chinese and Korean 
 elements; it will not fail to show itself equally successful in 
 this further process. As the United States is combining 
 individuals of many peoples into a national unity, so is Japan 
 'combining civilizations into a social order which, though 
 certain to be its own contribution to history, will be none the 
 less generically modern. 
 
 Japan is still the land of cherry blossoms and wisteria, 
 of beautiful mountains, of exquisite courtesy, of delicate art, 
 of fascinating folk ways, and of endless charm; but Japan is 
 also a land of factories, dock yards, coal mines, banks, depart¬ 
 ment stores, schools, hard-headed business and trained 
 diplomacy. The sooner the Western nations appreciate the 
 essential identity of dominant influences of Japanese life with 
 their own the sooner will they understand and properly 
 estimate Japanese policies. So long as the Japanese are 
 regarded as merely imitative Orientals they will be misunder¬ 
 stood, and the misunderstanding will be the soil for too many 
 seeds of ill-will and suspicion. Furthermore, the sooner the 
 other partners in this Western civilization come to distrust the 
 elaborate theories of ethnic dififerences and racial antipathies, 
 born of too highly refined academic speculation, the sooner will 
 they recognize this essential unity of spirit as a chief factor 
 in Japanese dealings with other nations. Japan is taking her 
 place among the powers, not because she is ‘‘Oriental,” but 
 because she is ceasing to be Oriental. There could be nothing 
 more futile and misleading than to approach actual concrete 
 
 7 
 
problems of international relations with a preconceived theory 
 of national characteristics born of a jumble of provincial 
 prejudice, a priori race-psychology, smoking-room gossip 
 and the books of Lafcadio Hearn. 
 
 II 
 
 A second element in the new Asiatic situation is the curse 
 of international suspicion. 
 
 True, one ought not to be surprised at this unfortunate ele¬ 
 ment in internationalism. The history of the development of 
 nations has been very largely one of wars in which patriotism 
 has been a euphemism for a socialized hatred of other nations 
 whose customs and character have been misrepresented and 
 misunderstood. To-day, as never before, we are experiencing 
 the evils of an exaggerated repellant patriotism that believes 
 slander of one’s enemies to be love of one’s nation. Any stu¬ 
 dent of European history knows the suspicion with which the 
 Anglo-Saxon race have in the past regarded the Romance 
 peoples, but if he were to be set down in the changing world 
 of the East, he would find himself suddenly in the midst of 
 a suspicion which, if natural in the impact of antipodal civiliza¬ 
 tions, is none the less disconcerting. Looking thus at my own 
 country through the eyes of Asiatic suspicion, I saw a very 
 different land from that with which I believed myself 
 acquainted. I saw a nation materialistic, dollar-mad, and 
 hypocritical; a nation that carried the Golden Rule and the 
 Christ to individual heathen, and at home permitted slums to 
 develop, crimes to go unpunished, and graft to become the 
 base of municipal government. I saw a nation professing 
 to be altruistic, yet permitting subjects of a friendly nation 
 to be insulted and abused in one of its states. I saw a nation 
 with imperialistic ambitions moving slowly, yet surely, 
 towards Asiatic territory. I saw it take the Hawaiian Islands, 
 seize Panama by means of revolution, force its way upon the 
 Philippine Islands, and seek concessions in China. I saw 
 it building war ships, fortifying Hawaii and Philippines, 
 
 8 
 
and if current stories were to be believed, seeking a naval base 
 opposite Formosa and only biding its time before making 
 war upon Japan. 
 
 Every American would say such an opinion is unjust. Un¬ 
 just it certainly is; but is it so very unlike what some of us 
 see when we look westward across the Pacific towards Japan? 
 If we are to judge Japan by the reports in the newspapers, 
 conversation at the Clubs, and even learned papers by pro¬ 
 fessors who would reduce history to epigrams, we see a na¬ 
 tion that is merely biding its time, arrogant, insincere, land- 
 hungry, within twenty years seizing Formosa, Seghalin, 
 Korea, Southern Manchuria, now determined upon seizing 
 China, and incidentally establishing a naval base in Mexico, 
 and getting ready to plant its flag upon the Rocky Mountains. 
 
 Each of these interpretations is the codification of sus¬ 
 picions born of mutual ignorance and misunderstanding. In 
 fact, every suspicion America has had of Japan, Japan has 
 had of America. In such suspicions the details are not the 
 serious matter. Each bit of sinister gossip may be denied 
 promptly. We may run down absurd stories about Japanese 
 spies and American warships, but the attitude of suspicion 
 will not be cured by official denials. Armies and navies will 
 not allay suspicion. You cannot remove it by killing those 
 who possess it; it cannot be stilled by sinking ships, blowing 
 up forts or telling stories of atrocities. The only cure of 
 international suspicion is international goodwill, a mutual 
 respect between nations for each other’s rights.. 
 
 Are the moral forces of America and Japan—^to say 
 nothing of other nations of the world—strong enough to meet 
 this test? In an age which is deliberately corrupting inter¬ 
 national friendships, that is being taught that a treaty has 
 no value beyond fear which the treaty-making nation may 
 inspire, that sees billings gate replacing discussion of peace 
 policies, we who profess our faith in the power of morality 
 to destroy these suspicions face no small adventure. But 
 allay suspicions we must if this new mingling of tie Western 
 
 9 
 
and Eastern worlds is ever to be other than a source of in¬ 
 ternational struggle. Just at present I believe the friendship 
 of Japan and the United States is threatened, not so much 
 because of any particular unfriendly act, but because of this 
 accumulating mass of mutual suspicion, bom of irrational 
 misunderstanding, incipient commercial rivalry, professional 
 mischief makers and over-heated rhetoric. 
 
 But there is much more at stake than friendship between 
 the United States and Japan. An epoch of history is at 
 stake; the policies which will affect our descendants to the 
 third and fourth generation, are at stake. Important as the 
 relations between the two nations may be, how vastly more 
 important is it for China and all Asia that the two civiliza¬ 
 tions shall be permitted to mingle and mutually react upon 
 each other, unpoisoned by suspicions begotten in or forced 
 upon the country in which this combination is most under 
 way. While a new civilization is being born in Japan of the 
 nion of the West and the East it is only the part of wisdom 
 .o see that suspicion is not among its pre-natal influence. 
 
 III. 
 
 The task of guaranteeing a healthy, peaceable mingling 
 of the two world forces in Japan must rest idtimately upon 
 the moral and religious forces at work within all the coun¬ 
 tries involved in Asiatic development. 
 
 This simple statement of fact brings one face to face 
 with the entire problem of Christian missions. Here again 
 our judgment is apt to be swayed by personal estimation of 
 facts. On the one side are educated Japanese sturdily main¬ 
 taining that the older religions of Japan furnish the neces¬ 
 sary moral forces to determine the process of the social 
 transformation. On the other side we meet statements as¬ 
 serting the exclusive ability of the Christian church to ac¬ 
 complish the same end. A detached and general estimate 
 of the situation will probably give more accurate impressions 
 than is possible for the representative of either of the op- 
 
 10 
 
posing religious forces of Japan. In too many cases the 
 workers in both Christian and non-Christian groups fail to 
 see social forces in the large and mistake a knowledge of 
 routine duties and local situations for general tendencies. 
 After, however, hearing and reading a variety of opinions, 
 I have come to at least three definite conclusions, regarding 
 the progress of basal moral forces in Japan. 
 
 1. In the first place, this community of civilization of 
 which I have been speaking is producing two sets of religious 
 problems in Japan. On the one side are those which are set 
 by Western civilization. It is a very general opinion among 
 the intelligent Japanese that Western culture has failed to 
 furnish moral direction to those who have come under its 
 influence. It has had the negative effect of breaking down 
 the old religious control and of alienating practically an entire 
 generation of young men from the religious views of their 
 ancestors. Twenty years ago it was the belief of men like 
 Baron Shibusawa that the old Japanese ideals of loyalty 
 and filial piety would protect the youth of Japan from the 
 moral anarchy liable to result from the introduction of West¬ 
 ern learning. I believe that very few thoughtful Japanese 
 at the present time have any such belief. The problem of 
 meeting the flow of materialistic thought that has swept over 
 Japan is altogether too great for anything short of a religion 
 to accomplish, and thus far the educated class of Japan have 
 not really co-ordinated religion, as distinct from ethics, with 
 their culture. At the same time they have been given sinister 
 lessons by the “Christian nations” as to the supremacy of 
 economic interests. The lesson is unfortunate. No observer 
 of Japanese policy can fail to see what spiritual dangers lurk 
 in a possible utilizing of the Japanese patriotism-religion, by 
 a policy of commercial expansion. Just as such expansion 
 has sometimes been identified by America and Great Britain 
 with conscience and by Germany with Germanic Kultur, so 
 in Japan is it in danger of being confused with that marvel¬ 
 lous loyalty which is a basis of Japan’s national vigor. With 
 
 11 
 
education and patriotism thus assailed by anti-spiritual forces 
 the westernized Japanese present a problem to Christianity 
 essentially the same as in corresponding circles in Europe and 
 the United States. Such modern men of Japan would be no 
 more affected by the ill-trained, though zealous, missionary 
 than are the well educated classes of America affected by the 
 workers in rescue missions. 
 
 In the case, however, of those teeming millions who are 
 not yet transformed thoroughly by Western learning, but 
 still worship at the shrines and temples, the problem is differ¬ 
 ent. Their faith is not troubled by Nietsche, Haeckel or even 
 Herbert Spencer. To them religion can be brought less as a 
 philosophy and more on its own merits. Among these people 
 the ordinary missionary can work more effectively than in 
 cities. At least it is a general opinion among educated Jap¬ 
 anese that the Christian missionary’s chief business, outside 
 of his institutions of education, will be as evangelist in small 
 towns. If I catch the implication of this opinion, it is that 
 while there is still room for the exceptional missionary as 
 a representative of progressive Christian thought and activi¬ 
 ties, and for the ordinary missionary as evangelist among the 
 genuinely non-Christian, non-Western population, the Jap¬ 
 anese of education can be trusted to carry out increasingly 
 the propaganda of their faith, both in school and church, 
 thereby evolving a type of Christianity which is particularly 
 adapted to the new conditions being born of Western culture 
 and Japanese life. That is to say, that the spiritual forces 
 of New Japan will be able to cope with the conditions which 
 threaten moral anarchy. 
 
 2. But it is well to look a little deeper into the significance 
 of the Christian movement as we see it in Japan. There, for 
 the first time, it faces a non-Christian population possessed 
 of essentially the same social mind and education as that of 
 the land from which the missionary comes. That this new 
 social mind is due in larger measure to the missionaries of a 
 generation or more ago, all thoughtful Japanese readily admit. 
 
 12 
 
From the point of view of sociology, foreign missions can be 
 described as the process by which Western civilization at 
 first instinctively but gradually more deliberately, along with 
 its militarism, its industrial organizations and its education, 
 carried also that which had been its driving and unifying 
 moral force —■ namely its religious ideals. But its partial 
 success is one of its dangers. It is exceedingly difficult 
 for a missionary not to regard himself unconsciously as a 
 member of a superior race. Such an attitude inevitably min¬ 
 isters to misunderstanding, and ill will. In the same propor¬ 
 tion as Japanese move forward will they resent this attitude 
 and the more will they insist that the Japanese social order 
 be permitted to choose its own influences. Then will come 
 the real test of the missionary effort. It is perfectly obvious 
 that if our religion cannot thoroughly Christianize the social 
 order in America, it will even more pronouncedly fail in 
 Christianizing the same socinl order when it is handicapped 
 by national suspicion and the presence of rival religions. 
 Personally, I believe that the mission movement will adjust 
 itself—in fact, it is already adjusting itself to this new con¬ 
 dition. Our growing appreciation of the intellectual tenabilit}' 
 and social power of the teaching of Jesus is training Chris¬ 
 tians to larger efficiency in non-Christian lands. But in 
 Japan the task is more like that of home missions than of the 
 foreign missions in the East. 
 
 3. In the third place, Christianity has had a noteworthy 
 influence in Japan outside of churches—an influence which 
 cannot be rneasnred in statistics or by professions of loyalty 
 to itself. There is at the present time in Japan a widespread 
 and deepening interest in morality and religion. Like America, 
 Japan is passing through a sort of conviction of sin, and the 
 thoughtful and intelligent men throughout the country are 
 now thinking of the problems of life in terms of ideals, sub¬ 
 stantially Christian. Thus, there is a new concern in regard 
 to prostitution, business honesty, and political corruption. This 
 interest is by no means limited to the Japanese Christians who 
 
 13 
 
are showing zeal and power in the maintenance of a three 
 years’ evangelical campaign. It is found among the Bud¬ 
 dhists who are undertaking to duplicate the Y. M. C. A. and 
 other Christian institutions. It was found among those who 
 are the followers of Confucius. But wherever the ideals are 
 the same as those of the more intelligent type of Christian 
 ethics it is impossible to doubt that this deepening interest in 
 things spiritual is in large measure due to Christian influence 
 —in schools, in literature, and from the pulpit. In fact, Chris¬ 
 tianity seems to have had the power to awaken non-Christian 
 religions in Japan at the point at which their tenets most 
 resemble Christianity. So that to a degree that is very im¬ 
 pressive, there is developing in Japan a moral attitude which 
 is essentially the same as that which Christianity inculcates. 
 Even though it be true that this ethical revival has not 
 developed a searching conception of sin and is still seeking 
 a religious faith able to develop moral sacrifice and enthusiasm, 
 it is of profound significance to the course of history in Asia. 
 Formulas and words are here of secondary importance to 
 attitudes and ideals. Whether Japan ever becomes professedly 
 a Christian country is of less moment than whether its develop¬ 
 ment is to be controlled by the principles Christianity pro¬ 
 fesses. And in this regard the opinion of such men as Dr. 
 Soyeda is explicitly affirmative. 
 
 But in the same proportion as this moral attitude, under 
 whatever name, is socialized in the upper classes of Japan, 
 does its promise become more hopeful. The heart of Chris¬ 
 tian ethics is to give justice rather than to get righhs; but such 
 ethical idealism leads ultimately to religious conviction that 
 God is love, and that in the giving of justice one is only re¬ 
 producing the sacrificial attitude of God himself. If the 
 representatives of Christianity in Japan insist upon the sacri¬ 
 ficial element of Christianity they are bound to influence the 
 entire field of social readjustment. If Christianity be a power 
 of God unto Salvation, not only in the case of individuals 
 but of the constructive forces of civilization, how can it really 
 
 14 
 
operate in Japan as a mere form of self-realizing individual¬ 
 ism? How can Christianity be preached in the larger sense 
 of the word without preaching human equality and fraternity? 
 How can a Christian who has really the spirit of Jesus Christ 
 be indifferent to the rights as well as to the physical needs 
 of the less favored classes? Can man be Christian and not 
 be concerned to bring brotherliness into international politics? 
 These are questions which confront America and Japan alike. 
 In Japan, as in America, Christian idealism must ultimately 
 express itself in legislation dealing with the dangerous influ¬ 
 ences which are the outgrowth of industrial civilization. There 
 can be seen in the recent election in Japan the growing in¬ 
 fluence of the conception of constitutionalism as opposed to 
 clan influence, in government. Here again the moral problems 
 of political Japan are essentially the same as those of America 
 and to a considerable extent will be answered as they are be¬ 
 ing answered in America. The community of life which has 
 given rise to social change will ultimately demand identity of 
 treatment in terms of moral idealism, and religious dynamic. 
 It is useless for us to preach any religion in Japan that does 
 not face these social questions. It is quite as useless as it 
 would be in America. To these spiritual forces both Japan 
 and America must look, if the course of social development 
 is to be healthy and helpful, and I am thankful to say that 
 l oth in Japan and the United States new moral forces are 
 already operative. How far they must affect internation¬ 
 alism will appear as we face the vital question of the particular 
 relations of Japan and the United States. For the future 
 of Asia is a concrete problem in the morality of international 
 oolicies. 
 
 IV. 
 
 The relations of America and Japan with each other and 
 with China present a supreme opportunity for establishing 
 international politics upon new ethical basis. 
 
 To understand the relations of Japan and the United 
 States, it is necessary to remember that they are a phase of the 
 
 15 
 
larger relationship which has developed because of the impact 
 of Western and Asiatic worlds. So long as we consider the 
 matter as exclusively the concern of two countries are we 
 bound to see the policies of each in the wrong perspective, 
 and to deliver ourselves to partisan sympathies and mutual 
 recriminations. 
 
 The American-Japanese situation involves two distinct 
 considerations; first, the direct relations of the United States 
 with Japan regarding the treatment of Japanese subjects in 
 America; and, secondly, the complications which are arising 
 and which are likely to rise in the future over China. 
 
 1. As regards the issue which has arisen between the 
 United States and Japan relative to the treatment of the Jap¬ 
 anese in California and other Western States, the superficial 
 issue is the immediate problem, and is easily understood. By 
 the treaty drawn between Japan and the United States the sub¬ 
 jects of both governments were accorded the same rights of 
 commerce in the respective countries. These rights did not 
 include ownership of land by Japanese in America or by 
 Americans in Japan. So far as the Americans in Japan are 
 concerned, their status is that of all other aliens. Until the 
 new law now on the Statute Books is put into operation, they 
 cannot hold land in fee simple. They may, however, lease 
 land for 999 years, or may organize corporations for the pur¬ 
 pose of holding land. In the former case, it should be added 
 that the leases often provide that if the law is passed grant¬ 
 ing ownership in fee simple, the lessee may exchange his lease 
 for such direct ownership. 
 
 The situation, however, is different as regards the case 
 of the Japanese in America. Except in States with general 
 laws preventing or regulating ownership by all aliens, the 
 Japanese have enjoyed essentially the same privileges as the 
 subjects of other nations, or of American citizens. That is 
 to say, until the recent legislation in California, the Japanese 
 were permitted privileges regarding land ownership in excess 
 of the rights granted them by treaty. In 1913, however, the 
 
 16 
 
California Alien Land Law was passed. In this law federal 
 discrimination as to the exclusive eligibility of white and 
 African races to naturalization was made the basis of eco¬ 
 nomic discrimination. Aliens in Califoma were divided into 
 two classes and given different privileges. Those eligible to 
 citizenship were given all the rights of land ownership ac¬ 
 corded to citizens of the United States. All others were 
 given such rights of land ownership as were expressly guar¬ 
 anteed them by treaty, and in addition were permitted to 
 lease land for agricultural purposes for three years. Such 
 aliens, if owners of land, were forbidden to transfer it to their 
 fellow countrymen or to organize corporations, the majority 
 of the stockholders of which were aliens not eligible to citi¬ 
 zenship. It was frankly stated that this legislation w^as in¬ 
 tended to discriminate against the Japanese. It is this dis¬ 
 crimination which is the very heart of the as yet open protest 
 made by the Japanese Government to the United States. 
 
 It is difficult for the American people to appreciate this 
 fact, because they are likely to confuse the issue with the 
 danger of unlimited Asiatic immigration. As a matter of 
 fact, however, the Japanese Government has undertaken to 
 check all immigration of Japanese workingmen and are en¬ 
 forcing this promise scrupulously. There is, therefore, no 
 question concerning Japanese immigration to California, or 
 even to Canada and Mexico. As a matter of fact, there are 
 probably 10,000 fewer Japanese workingmen in the United 
 States to-day than there were eight years ago. Nor is it 
 possible to justify this discrimination by reference to the 
 limits set in Japan upon ownership of land by Americans. 
 Whatever their limitations are, they are shared by all aliens, 
 and there is no anti-American discrimination. The real issue, 
 and the only issue in the California problem, is the affront to 
 the dignity of Japan by discriminating legislation. The Fed- 
 .eral Government attempted to prevent this affront, but the 
 State of California refused to listen to the request of Presi¬ 
 dent Wilson and Secretary Bryan, and passed the law. 
 
 17 
 
Wherever we discussed this matter in Japan we found 
 that they insisted Japan was a friend of the United States 
 and that this friendship was of long standing. This action 
 of the California legislature, however, was a serious blow to 
 the friendship, although they believed, especially since the 
 Christian people of the United States had taken the matter up, 
 that justice would ultimately be done. 
 
 I cannot believe that any fair-minded American can hold 
 any different opinion regarding this situation than that which 
 is held by the Japanese themselves. The difficulty, of course, 
 is to adjust matters in the interest of fair play. At the ver}' 
 outset we are confronted by the gap between the power of 
 the Federal Government to make treaties and its inability 
 to control the treatment accorded the subjects of the Powers 
 with whom it has treaties of friendship. This difficulty the 
 Japanese to some extent understand, but it is, nevertheless, 
 a serious flaw in our governmental procedure. It is highly 
 desirable, in fact imperative, that some steps be taken by Con¬ 
 gress to remedy this defect. The issue raised at the present 
 time by the Japanese Government has been raised by other 
 nations and is likely to be a source of new irritation and enmity. 
 It is to be hoped that the matter can be handled on its merits 
 as a constitutional question rather than merely as a phase of 
 the American-Japanese issue. 
 
 Our protracted discussions with the representative men 
 of Japan have left no doubt in our minds as to the fundamental 
 friendship of the Japanese Empire. At the same time it can¬ 
 not be denied that there is an anti-American spirit in certain 
 quarters throughout the Empire. This spirit we were assured 
 by competent observers is only a reflex of anti-Japanese feel¬ 
 ing in America, and is less to-day than a few months ago 
 when talk of war with the United States was probably as 
 common among certain classes in Japan as talk of war with 
 Japan is current among corresponding classes in the United 
 States. I do not believe that we were misled by the repeated 
 
 18 
 
statements that the Japanese did not want war with the 
 United States and w'ere ready to await the proper action on 
 the part of the United States. Gratifying as this evidence of 
 patient friendship on the part of Japan is, it seems to me 
 unworthy of a great nation like the United States to leave 
 the situation in its present status in which an unanswered 
 protest is still lodged with our State Department in Wash¬ 
 ington. We ought not to let the possibility of war rise and 
 fall w'ith the financial condition of a friendly nation whose 
 honor we have permitted to be insulted. Baron Kato frankly 
 says that the material issue at stake in the California legisla¬ 
 tion is relatively small, but none the less I cannot believe that 
 a nation with the professed ideals of the United States will 
 permit another nation to cherish a sense of ill treatment which 
 will be a fertile ground on which suspicions and misunder¬ 
 standings can bear bitter fruit. We cannot afiford to have 
 the friendship of the tw’o nations degenerate into a mere 
 desire on the part of each that the other shall be friendly. 
 
 2. To my mind the situation which is now growing up 
 about China is of greater importance for the future than the 
 so-called California problem, serious as that is. For in it are 
 involved not only our relations with Japan but the interests 
 and policies of practically all the great nations of the future. 
 I doubt if any men, outside of the Governments concerned, 
 know accurately the demands which have been made by Japan 
 and China. We have had statements purporting to represent 
 these demands, and two sets of such statements especially 
 deserve attention. One of these purports to be the demands 
 presented by Japan to China and the other is a document 
 given by Japan to the representatives of the Pow'ers. The 
 two agree in general as regards proposals wnth reference to 
 Shantung, Manchuria and Eastern Mongolia, but the Japanese 
 note to the Powers omits the demands contained in Group 
 Five of the other statement, and it is this group in which 
 the world at large has particular interest, for in it are de¬ 
 mands involving the independence of Chinese governmental 
 policy, if not powers. 
 
 19 
 
Much of the news emanating from Peking is obviously 
 colored by anti-Japanese feeling and it is very difficult to 
 accept any of the reports on their face value; in fact, this 
 coloring of reports in the apparent interest of making trouble 
 between the United States and Japan is a menace in the 
 present relations between the two countries. But after due 
 allowance is made for such coloring, enough uncertainty 
 remains to cause serious thought. 
 
 America’s interest in China is essentially two-fold; in 
 the first place, it involves the maintenance of the so-called 
 “open door policy.” To this Japan has agreed and during 
 the past few weeks Count Okuma has repeatedly stated in 
 his interviews to both Dr. Gulick and myself, and others, 
 that this policy is to be maintained. Personally, I take 
 these statements literally, neither reading into them nor 
 detracting from them. I believe Japan will maintain the 
 '^open door” in China, but that in so doing she will not turn 
 to the left nor the right from that which is her own interest 
 interpreted in the largest sense. 
 
 Similarly, as regards the integrity and sovereignty of 
 China, I take the statements of Count Okuma literally, neither 
 reducing them nor drawing from them implications which 
 American sympathies or fear might suggest. As Baron Kato 
 stated in his address at the Association Concordia, Japan in¬ 
 tends to obtain her rights in China—no more and no less. 
 
 But until Japan more clearly indicates just what she 
 believes these rights to be, there is a great area in which the 
 relations of Japan and the United States as regards China 
 are subject to no well-defined limits. By the so-called Root- 
 Takahira agreement, either nation has a right to question the 
 other when its interests seem to be involved by the action of 
 the other, and it is on the basis of this agreement that the 
 United States has addressed friendly inquiries to Japan as 
 to the situation in China. Thus far neither Government has 
 made official statements as to the nature of these inquiries or 
 the answers given thereto. Those not in the confidence of 
 
 20 
 
either government consequently cannot avoid some apprehen¬ 
 sion lest the treaties between the United States with China 
 are involved. At the same time Japan may be planning 
 concessions and agreements which may go far to stabilize 
 conditions in China. 
 
 It is desirable, however, that without being unduly swayed 
 by sympathies, the American people should understand Japan^s 
 position relative to China. 
 
 Not only the future prosperity but the actual national 
 existence of Japan is involved in the maintenance of the sov¬ 
 ereignty and integrity of China. A China divided by or under 
 the control of European nations, with unavoidable concessions 
 and naval bases, would expose Japan to constant danger of war. 
 She has already realized the cost of this issue in the Russo- 
 Japanese War. By virtue of that war and later agreements she 
 has obtained possession of Korea and important concessions in¬ 
 volving police powers in Southern Manchuria, and is, there¬ 
 fore, reasonably safe against an attack from the North, pro¬ 
 viding only she is able to control these two great territories. 
 By the victory of Tsingtao she now controls a third harbor 
 on the coast of China and, for the moment at least, is free 
 from German rivalry and influence in China. Great Britain 
 and France, of course, still control the ports which mark the 
 progress of the assault upon the integrity of China by foreign 
 nations in the nineties, but, if the present status is conserved, 
 Japan may fairly well be said to be safe from immediate 
 danger of attack through China. This status, however, is 
 always liable to be changed by the pressure brought to bear 
 upon China by other powers because of debts now amounting 
 to nearly a billion dollars or in order to gain concessions 
 of various sorts. In view of this liability it is not strange 
 that Japan, remembering the last twenty years of Euro¬ 
 pean intervention in China, sees dangers of further political 
 control in that republic. In the present negotiations she 
 apparently is endeavoring to safeguard herself from such 
 liability. 
 
 21 
 
If this is the actual extent of the Japanese demand, and 
 if the only purpose Japan has is to build up an Asiatic Monroe 
 Doctrine, the American people can hardly fail to sympathize 
 with her, particularly as we recall her need for territory in 
 which to expand. This principle of colonization in the inter¬ 
 ests of overflowing population, it is true, has never been fol¬ 
 lowed by America; but it is probably too much to expect that 
 Japan, with its territorial limitations, would fail to follow 
 the precedent set by all European powers. At all events 
 Japan has confessedly set her hand at developing its trade 
 with China, and regards someTorm of colonization as neces¬ 
 sary for the success of that policy. 
 
 But the analogy of the Monroe Doctrine will not justify 
 the direct or indirect, whole or partial control of China by 
 Japan in the interests of Japanese commercial or territorial 
 expansion. The United States, it may be conceded, adopted 
 the Monroe Doctrine as a means of self-protection, but it has 
 never been made an excuse for aggrandizement or interference 
 in the governmental policy of American Republics. The 
 policy of Japan may be likened to that of the Monroe Doc¬ 
 trine, therefore, only in so far as the nation seeks to protect 
 itself through checking European aggressions in China; but it 
 will be quite different in so far as it may involve the establish¬ 
 ment of Japan as a predominant political influence and check 
 in the internal affairs of China. Yet it is precisely at this point 
 that America is drawn into the situation. It not only desires 
 the “open door” for commerce, but it also does not want to see 
 China dismembered or the subject of Japan. In my opinion, it is 
 unfair to attribute either of these two purposes to Japan, but 
 I am frank to say that it seems also true that Japan intends 
 to have a predominating influence in the development of China. 
 If this influence is to be magnanimously in the interests of 
 China rather than in those of Japan, the world will certainly 
 applaud the Japanese policy, but it is difficult for either Europe 
 or America to hold an unqualified conviction that this is 
 Japan’s plan until they are taken further into Japan’s con¬ 
 fidence. 
 
 22 
 
In this juncture China looks hopefully to the United 
 States, just as Japan, before that Empire became the present 
 World Power, looked to the United States, for Japan cannot 
 fail to remember the services of Townsend Harris in pre¬ 
 venting the exploitation of Japan by European powers. 
 
 Thus America, both because of the “open door" treaties 
 and from the protecting of a weak nation, has been drawn 
 into the Asiatic maelstrom. If I interpret the American 
 attitude correctly, there is a general belief among the more 
 intelligent men that it would be better for China to develop 
 under Asiatic leadership than under European. But the ques¬ 
 tion still remains—Why should China require any leadership 
 involving political control? Would not the chivalrous policy 
 on the part of all nations be to guarantee China free oppor¬ 
 tunity for self-development? If China must at the same 
 moment in which she is passing through social revolution 
 incident to the coming in of Western civilization be forced 
 also to protect herself from the nations which would exploit 
 her weakness, the future is certainly dark—both for China 
 and for the rest of the world. It is an opportunity for broad 
 and generous treatment on the part of Japan. I cannot refrain 
 from expressing the hope that a nation that has accomplished 
 so much in the way of material transformation may find that 
 spiritual forces already operating among her leaders will be 
 sufficient to lead to a hearty co-operation between herself and 
 the United States, not only in maintaining the technical sov¬ 
 ereignty and integrity of China, but in watching over China's 
 interests until that great land finds itself able to erect itself 
 into political order and economical efficiency. Cannot the 
 two nations co-operate for the good of China as well as for 
 establishing trade with China ? 
 
 Here seems to me to be a supreme opportunity for the 
 I ffiited States and Japan to show the meaning, not only of 
 their friendship for each other, but for China as well. In a 
 moment when all Europe has found the diplomacy of force 
 bringing about indescribable misery, the United States and 
 
 23 
 
Japan have the opportunity to demonstrate the power of a 
 diplomacy based upon the giving of justice. 
 
 I hesitate to give expression to the profound feeling 
 with which I contemplate this possibility of the two nations 
 co-operating in generous brotherliness toward Asia. I have 
 found Japan so full of noble sentiments, so eager for the best 
 things in our Western world, while yet so loyal to the best 
 heritage of her past, that I have not only admiration for her 
 scholars and statesmen, but the highest hopes for her national 
 expansion. I believe she has in large measure the future of 
 Asia in her keeping. No such opportunity has come to any 
 Asiatic nation, perhaps to no nation of the world, to show 
 that a magnanimous policy is the wise policy. I feel it a test 
 of Japan’s true greatness. Will she only repeat the lessons 
 taught by European policies in Asia, insisting only upon her 
 rights; or will she give the world a new and epoch-making 
 lesson in sacrificial internationalism, in which, while protect¬ 
 ing her own future, she shall, with the hearty co-operation of 
 America, also safeguard the rights of a huge, unshaped people 
 bravely tiffing to tread the same path she herself has trod? 
 
 If she chooses the latter task with its sacrificial giving of 
 justice, she will capture the love and admiration of every true 
 patriot the world over, and she will open in world history 
 an epoch that shall indeed be not only Meiji—the Enlightened 
 —^but Taisho—that of Great Righteousness. 
 
 Thus we reach the conclusion of the matter: The United 
 States and Japan are rapidly acquiring the same civilization, 
 the same ethical point of view toward life, and are together 
 facing the problem of a new Asia. It should be the duty of 
 every thoughtful person within these two great nations so to 
 understand each other that this fellowship may not be dis¬ 
 turbed by injustice and suspicion. The United States should 
 do justice to Japanese in America. It should co-operate with 
 Japan as the leader and teacher of the new China through its 
 period of development. The world is already confronting along 
 the Pacific the same issues which have broken down the peace 
 
 24 
 

 of Europe. Is it too much to hope that the representatives 
 of noble ideals in America and in Japan shall be wise enough 
 and influential enough to create a public opinion strong enough 
 to make reliance upon force give way to reliance upon friend¬ 
 ship and justice? If such is to be the basis of the inter¬ 
 nationalism of the Pacific, the meeting of the two civilizations 
 in Asia under the fraternal guidance of Japan and the United 
 States will be no threat of international dispute but a guarantee 
 of world peace. 
 
 25 
 

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 *?. 1 I Hi ’.'•'T ,-T :■ I'l 
 
The Church Peace Union 
 
 {Founded by Andrew Carnegie) 
 
 TRUSTEES 
 
 Rev. Peter Ainslie, D.D., LL.D., Baltimore, Md. 
 
 Rev. Arthur Judson Brown, D.D., LL.D., New York. 
 
 Rev. Francis E. Clark, D.D., LL.D., Boston, Mass. 
 President W. H. P. Faunce, D.D., LL.D., Providence, R. I. 
 His Eminence, James Cardinal Gibbons, Baltimore, Md. 
 Rt. Rev. David H. Greer, D.D., LL.D., New York 
 Rev. Frank O. Hall, D.D., New York. 
 
 Bishop E. R. Hendrix, D.D., Kansas City, Mo. 
 
 Rabbi Emil G. Hirsch, LL.D., Chicago, Ill. 
 
 Hamilton Holt, LL.D., New York 
 
 Professor William I. Hull, Ph.D., Swarthmore, Pa. 
 
 Rev. Charles E. Jefferson, D.D., LL.D., New York. 
 
 Rev. Jenkin Lloyd Jones, LL.D., Chicago, Ill. 
 
 Rt. Rev. William Lawrence, D.D., Boston, Mass. 
 
 Rev. Frederick Lynch, D.D., New York. 
 
 Rev. Charles S. Macfarland, Ph.D., New York. 
 
 Marcus M. Marks, New York 
 
 Dean Shailer Mathews, D.D., LL.D., Chicago, Ill. 
 
 Edwin D. Mead, M.A., Boston, Mass. 
 
 Rev. William Pierson Merrill, D.D., LL.D., New York. 
 John R. Mott, LL.D., New York 
 George A. Plimpton, LL.D., New York. 
 
 Rev. Julius B. Remensnyder, D.D., LL.D., New York, 
 Judge Henry Wade Rogers, LL.D., New York. 
 
 Robert E. Speer, D.D., New York. 
 
 Francis Lynde Stetson, New York. 
 
 James J. Walsh, M.D., New York. 
 
 Bishop Luther B. Wilson, D.D., LL.D., New York.