First Impressions of Japan

Is a matter of genuine American pride that out of I San Francisco such excellent ships run to the Orient. The Pacific Mail operates the United States Shipping Board's steamers. My ship was "The Hoosier State, Captain Ryland Drennan, a native of Santa Cruz, on the bridge, and Chief Engineer M. J. Stack, a native of San Francisco, at the throttle.

The company was congenial. Music, sports, fancy dress and masked balls made the voyage a holiday, and the ship a sea-side resort. Fair weather always prevailed, and after we left Honolulu, on the last ten days' lap to Yokahama, the temperature of the ocean was frequently eighty de

grees.

But it seems impossible to wholly escape politics. At the masquerade a high Manila official caused much merriment by appearing as a beggar, displaying upon his Republican breast the legend, "Blind, Deaf, Dumb, Married, Children, Democrat," and I, as Chairman, had to award him a prize for conveying a perfect conception of what he pretended

to be. In the distribution of "loaves and fishes" he had proved this because had he not, be it remembered, received a lucrative office?

Having arrived at Yokohama, when we came to the offing, ten newspaper representatives from the Japanese press sought me for an expression of opinion on the American-Japanese relations. They were in all respects as keen as our own reporters, and were accompanied by photographers. I could not escape; and although going to what I believed to be an unfriendly land, on account of my opposition to Japanese immigration, in a private capacity, and desiring to efface myself in order that my investigations. might be unembarrassed by publicity, I had to yield. They were courteous and clever as they quizzed me and grinned. I had been warned to be wary and hints of personal peril were whispered sotto voce by my fellow passengers. I did not believe, from my knowledge of the Japanese at home— and, indeed, my experience-that they ever used violence as a weapon of either persuasion or resentment, and I decided to pay them the best compliment I could by telling them the truth without fear. It was something of a shock, but it got the right reaction. One vernacular paper, however, referred bitterly in glaring headlines to my "AntiJapanism;" and another, the Nichi-Nichi (Tokyo), Oct. 29, blared in unison, "The great enemy of Japanese arrives and opens his mouth hatefully."

They showed an intimate knowledge of Congressional bills, and asked what became of a constitutional amendment introduced by me in the Senate, to prevent the children of persons ineligible to citizenship from becoming citizens. I told them it died as all bills died with the last

Congress, and I was not sure that anyone had reintroduced it. They questioned its justice, but in reporting the interview they mistakenly made it apply to all aliens. This was the only serious error in taking down an off-hand conversation, which was doing very well.

I told them that I could understand their idea to expand; that their population was being continually congested with accretions of seven hundred thousand a year; but, as a Californian, particularly, I knew that their influx in mass to my State was not only disastrous but fatal to the interests of the native population; that the Japanese farmer could, and did, crowd off the soil the American, whose standards of living and labor were superior, the product of our Western civilization, which we were determined to preserve; that the Chinese could under-live and under-sell the Japanese, and, for the same economic reason, Japan rightfully will not permit mass nor any labor immigration of Chinese; that the Yamato race has been preserved in its purity by preventing Chinese and other infiltrations, which course was pursuant to the advise of the great biologist and economist, Herbert Spencer, sought by Japan; that California passed the anti-alien land law to stop the sale of its soil to Orientals because our farmers, more individualistic than the Japanese, who act in groups and under the direction of their own consuls, have been tempted to sell at high prices and abandon our rural districts for other States or for residence in our congested cities; and that were it not for immigration restrictions and the land law California would become a Japanese colony in twenty years; and, finally, that, pursuant to the policy of expansion, the Japanese should go elsewhere.

Then they asked: "Where and how?" This brought up in their minds really what I believe to be the policy of their government. Finding themselves blocked in the Pacific, and warned against colonizing the Western Hemisphere, they seek an outlet in nearby territory and want the Powers to acquiesce in their Asiatic aggressions. They have their eyes on all Manchuria, Western Siberia and North Saghalien, and put forward cunningly their California and Australian grievances as a cloak for their real intentions. They know the Australians and Californians, speaking for their respective countries, the British Empire and the United States, will not submit supinely to their own destruction. For this reason I believe they will, at the conference in Washington, urge consideration on these lines for toleration in Asia. They do not want the United States to fortify the Philippines and Guam, not because they fear, as they allege, attack from the United States, but to give themselves a freer hand in Asia. Their covetous eyes are also fixed on China, not for the purpose of expansion, because China is over-populated, but for economic control. In fact, I am of the opinion that emigration is a secondary purpose in all their negotiations. Their far-flung line of nationals may bring wealth to the home country, sadly in need of financial reinforcement, but their greater want is to employ and support their industries. commerce and shipping. Their great industrial establishments need a market, and, at the same time, these establishments, if operating, give work to the people, thus taking up the slackness, which is a chronic condition in the Japan of to-day.

But to return. The "Japan Advertiser" gave me a front