A Japanese Populist

BY THOMAS C. HUTTEN Author of “National Characteristics,” “The Farthest East”

TWO years ago a prominent Russian patriot admitted a misgiving that nothing but a miracle could shake the strongholds of Czarish despotism. It does not impeach the correctness of his view that the miracle has been accomplished.

A giant has entered the political arena; a new world power has risen from the dust of a Buddhist serf-kennel, and it is about time to recognize the fact that the marvel of evolution has been effected by progress in the direction of popular democracy.

The memorable vote of the daimios was a renunciation of class privileges. Of the forty amendments in the new constitution of the Japanese Empire, twenty-six tend to reform the abuses of class legislation. The nation controls two-thirds of its mines. Stockholders of a telegraph monopoly have been forced to accept a time limit of their contract. Six hundred and twenty miles of railroads are managed—and successfully managed—by a national board of administration. The Government, in the name of the nation, builds its own warships and welds its own armor-plates, instead of farming out jobs to the highest briber. The Ways and Means Committee of 1901 reduced direct taxation almost on the exact plan of the system recommended by the reformer Bakunin—reserving building lots in new cities and granting tenures from two to ten years at gradually increasing rates of rent.

Populist reforms have rendered the Government popular enough to make the nation invincible.

And the world-wide need of those reforms has been repeatedly urged by Japanese travelers, and with the emphasis of strong personal conviction, especially by a keen observer who visited Europe and North America in the summer of 1903.

Professor Yashinto Korioky, agent of a Tokio reform club, explored the United States without the assistance of the guides trained by our Star-spangled Uncle and with often remarkable results.

“Surprises,” he says, “indeed, began before we had set foot on the soil of the great moral Republic. Above the sea mist and above the gathering clouds a fire gleamed like a meteor on the western horizon, and one of the Chinese steerage passengers, venturing to inquire, ascertained that it was a statue of liberty, furnishing light to the world. The next moment a sailor struck him between the eyes, and he admitted that he saw several starlike, luminous objects.”

A TEST OF RIGHTEOUSNESS

“The next morning,” he continues, “I got my traveling scrip, but was informed that our boat was moored on the wharf of an island, where immigrants are assorted according to the degree of their rectitude. Some pass the ordeal of scrutiny with ease, others with difficulty, for reasons which I was not always able to discern. I noticed, however, that the Government has coined shekels of silver with inscriptions expressing sentiments of virtue—“In God we trust,” or similar words—and whenever a traveler came provided with a goodly number of these tokens, his righteousness seemed to be taken for granted.”

PATERNAL SOLICITUDE

“The investigations of the learned officials in some cases extended to articles of wearing apparel. One Canton trader had underlined his tunic with eighty yards of fine silk, which, being discovered, were unwound and confiscated to enforce a lesson of modesty in the matter of dress.”

WORLDLINESS SUPPRESSED

“He was, however, allowed to proceed, more fortunate than two of his countrymen who had crossed the ocean for the first time, and were sent back at the expense of the Chinese contractors. Forty years ago these worldly toilers were admitted as freely as other foreigners; but it was noticed that they worked sixteen hours a day and seven days in the week, thus disregarding the duty of providing leisure for spiritual exercises. And as their lack of repentance was, moreover, aggravated by the rapid accumulation of coin, it was finally decided to remove them for the promotion of their higher interests.”

A SCHOOL OF PATIENCE

“Animals that are most carefully excluded from the residence quarters of Japanese towns enjoy the freedom of many American cities. Cats roam at large and dogs are permitted to defile public monuments.... After dark their clamor exceeds the vociferations of the East Indian jackals and robs thousands of sleep; but it is perhaps necessary that taxpaying citizens should be trained in lessons of self-denial.”

GOVERNMENT MAN-TRAPS

“Knowing my reputation for veracity, be prompt, my brother, to intercede if the unregenerate of your neighborhood should question the following facts: In the course of each year some 80,000,000 ox-loads of grain are manufactured into a health-destroying poison; ... coal stoves, pretty as the vases of Nagasaki, radiate warmth in winter; fans, operated by unseen forces, mitigate the heat of the summer season. Singers often warble with the skill of the sirens. In the neighborhood of these seductive traps the Government then posts its man-catchers and awaits results. It may seem incredible. But I have been informed that in Southern China monkeys are often captured by similar devices. When the poison begins to operate they fall bewildered, and their awakening in a cage the next morning must tend to mitigate the frivolity of their disposition.”

A THOUGHTFUL LANDLORD

“The owner of the estate, we ascertained, was a timber merchant, as well as a pillar of virtue, and a large number of trees in the rear of the building had recently been felled—probably to give the neighborhood a more unobstructed view of heaven.”

COMPENSATING LEGISLATION

“Those stock gamblers, whose conspiracies had ruined thousands, were not mistaken in their expectation that the law would protect them against the risk of a riot. Children, gambling for peanuts, are promptly arrested. The advantages of magisterial virtue cannot be overrated.”

FOUR-HANDED FILIPINOS

“Apes, almost as dissolute as sparrows, are exhibited in the parks of several American cities.... In the Philippine Islands a large number of these animals has recently been captured and caged—probably to limit their opportunity for worldly enjoyments.”

NEMESIS

“But we learned that the steam launch scudding along the west shore of the bay was a smuggler, and its pursuer a Government revenue tug. For weeks—perhaps for months—the contrabandists, of Canadian origin, had been selling meat at frivolous rates, and the avengers of sacrilege were now at their heels.”

JUVENILE DEPRAVITY

“From the window of one of these air-trains, a package came clattering down on the sidewalk, scattering a shower of biscuits and hard-boiled eggs which were seized and devoured by the children of poverty before the guardians of law and order could interfere. One youngster of five or six years captured a piece of fruit cake and took to his heels with whoops of unregenerate glee, whereupon two older boys raced him down and deprived him of his prize—probably to restrain his penchant for dietetic luxuries.”

MENDICANCY LIMITED

“Two constables dragged along a shrieking girl, who every now and then resisted progress by throwing herself on the ground.... Of what crime could a child of her age possibly have been guilty? ... It appeared that she had been begging in support of an invalid mother, thus tempting taxpaying citizens to an expenditure of coin that should have been reserved for other purposes....

“Begging, however, is not wholly prohibited. Politicians often solicit millions in behalf of candidates who pledge themselves to protect the associations of wealth and suppress the holiday amusements of the poor.”

WINGED REFUGEES

“... saw nothing but a few crows and two kingfishers, flitting up and down the rocky banks of the brook. Experience had made them unapproachably shy, perhaps much to the regret of the neighboring saints, since they had probably been guilty of fishing on Sunday.”

A FASTING-CURE VICTORY

“Some forty families had been evicted to make room for a trainload of meek immigrants, who agreed to subsist on potatoes and the promise of a better hereafter.”

SKY LADDERS

“Seclusion in the upper cavities of these brick mountains must entail incredible hardships, ... but the landlords seem to hold that all these discomforts are compensated by the advantage of dwelling nearer heaven.”

A CHEERING PROSPECT

“In Oriental cities, with rare exceptions, everything suggesting the thought of death is hidden out of view; no sculptor would venture to exhibit an assortment of gravestones; but people to whom life brings nothing but a roundabout of toil and tedium may find solace in contemplating mementoes of the hour that will witness the end of their doom.”

The philanthropic traveler left his native land with ideals presaging a universal brotherhood of nations—perhaps under the leadership of our great Republic—but admits that, under present circumstances, our popular policy of expansion is, at best, only an attempt to widen the ring-walls of our slave-pen, before its gates are closed by a syndicate of bloodsuckers and boodle legislators.