SEATTLE TO ENTERTAIN ADMIRAL TOGO
Plans Under Way to Receive Great Naval Hero
TOGO WILL COME TO SEATTLE AND SAIL FROM HERE
Famous Japanese Sea Fighter Changes His Plans in Response to Invitation by Chamber of Commerce.
WILL BE ENTERTAINED HERE ON AUGUST 28
Admiral Count Heiachiro Togo, one of the greatest sea fighters in history, this morning notified the Seattle Chamber of Commerce, through the medium of the embassy at Washington, D.C., and the local Japanese consulate, that he had determined to accept Seattle's invitation to be its guest en route home from attendance at the coronation ceremonies in London, at which he was one of the official representatives of the Japanese emperor.
Admiral Togo's original plan contemplated returning to Japan by way of Vancouver but the Chamber of Commerce made insistent representations, through the Japanese consul-general at New York and the embassy at Washington, with the result that he has altered his itinerary in response thereto and will arrive in Seattle at 8:30 a.m. on August 28 remaining during the whole of the day and evening and sailing on the Tamba Maru the following morning at 10 o'clock from this port for Japan. The invitation was first extended by cablegram through the Japanese embassy in London.
The acquaintance and friendship of President J.D. Lowman of the chamber with members of the embassy and Japanese government officials were largely responsible for the admiral's alteration of his plan.
Will Be Entertained.
Admiral Togo will be fittingly entertained by Seattle business interests during his stay in the city. The program, however, has not as yet been definitely determined upon. The Commerce [illegible] extended an invitation to the admiral to be its guest at some function while in the city, but due to his limited stay, it has been determined to combine all efforts on one program of entertainment. The officers of the two bodies will confer tomorrow with this end in view and shortly announce a program, the exact nature of which is now under consideration.
Admiral Togo is uppermost in the minds of all civilized people as the commander in chief of the Japanese fleet during the Russian-Japanese War in 1904 and 1905.
Throughout his returning tour of the United States, his presence in various Eastern cities is creating a sensation, and he is the recipient of lavish attention from all classes of society. President Taft tendered him a banquet last Saturday night, during which the President suggested the importance to the move for world peace of Japan entering into treaties of arbitration such as have been agreed upon between the United States and Great Britain and the United States and France.
The circumstances of Admiral Togo's meeting and annihilation of the Russian fleet, under the command of Admiral Rojestvensky, are still fresh in the public mind. This was the greatest naval engagement with modern war equipment, and made of Admiral Togo the foremost sea-fighting man in modern times.
Togo Born in 1851.
Admiral Togo was born in 1851. From his youth his life has been devoted exclusively to the service of his country in the study and practice of the art of national defense. He was one of the few young men whom the Nippon government saw fit to send abroad for technical education. On the training ship Worcester he received his English schooling. In recognition of his many and manifold services, the emperor, in 1904, promoted him to the full rank of admiral and shortly thereafter his engagement with the Russian fleet earned for him his present status in modern war history.
Admiral Togo is, however, said to be very far from being a fighting man pure and simple. He arrived in New York on the day that the arbitration treaties were finally agreed upon by President Taft and the ambassadors from Great Britain and France. The admiral has taken great interest in these treaties, commending them as a step toward permanent universal peace and expressing the hope that arbitration will soon remove the possibility of war between nations of the world.