BROWN ARTISANS STEAL BRAINS OF WHITES

JAPANESE PROFESSORS BEG THE QUESTION

The often-remarked "imitative capacity" of the Japanese is a mere euphemism for unscrupulous piracy and infringement practiced at the expense of the American inventor and manufacturer. Baron Yeiichi Shibuzawa, the creator of modern industrial Japan, admits this when he says, "While the Japanese can imitate everything they cannot yet invent superior things." Awaking suddenly from her sleep of centuries the island empire is reaping where she has not sown, and the toiling nations who have borne the heat and burden of the day are expected to applaud the dexterity of the hands that rob them.

Commenting upon a letter communicated by Professor Jordan of Stanford University, the editor of the Review of Reviews, says: "The main point to be borne in mind is the desirability of doing nothing to offend the nation, which of all others entertains the most genuine feeling of friendship for this country."

Were he not far removed from the considerations that move his countrymen on the Pacific Coast he would realize that the risk of offending any nation upon earth is as nothing compared to the risk of offending even the least among our own people by injustice or oppression.

Public Men of the Orient Give Academic Reasons Why America Should Welcome Coolies.

We need no expression of government policy to understand very clearly that American immigration has been made one of the stones of the economic edifice that Japan is building. Governments, and especially Asiatic governments, do not usually wear their hearts upon their sleeves, but private citizens are less reticent. For some years past the commercial centers of Japan have been openly jubilant at Japanese success in marauding the new world. The avowed commercial and manufacturing policy of the country has been to make good the deficiencies that have arisen from her sleep of centuries by a feverish examination and imitation of what other nations have done--other nations that have been working instead of sleeping--and she now asks that such a policy as this be counted unto her for righteousness.

America knows how to appreciate energy and how to admire its fruits, but she is very certain that sowing the seed is the only honest preliminary to reaping the harvest. Japan is now industriously reaping where she has not sown. The armies of her more intelligent immigrants have swept down upon the fields of American toil and American workmen must not only stand aghast while the busy locusts are at work, but it would seem that they are also expected to raise a chorus of applause and admiration at the energy and determination that those same locusts are displaying.

Baron Yeiichi Shibuzawa has been described as the creator of industrial Japan and he ought, therefore, to be able to speak with authority on the work of his own hands and to paint accurately the ideals that underlie Japanese effort. Baron Shibuzawa carries candor almost to a fault, no doubt inspired by the vista of victory that opens before his eyes. He says "the time will come when Japan will be able to compete with the countries that have long occupied the field in all lines of manufactured goods. * * The trouble at present is that while the Japanese can imitate everything they cannot yet invent superior things."

ASKS APPLAUSE FOR ROBBER.

Precisely so. The prospect is admirably clear and unambiguous, but the process of imitation might perhaps be called by a less poetic name. It is not so much a case of industrial petty larceny as of industrial burglary, and the housekeeper, bound and helpless, has been asked to applaud the skill with which his own tools have been used to open his own safes and to look forward with glee to the day when an improved dexterity shall lead to increased depredations. The ability to "invent superior things" is one of the supreme possessions of American genius, and for this reason the American manufacturer and the American inventor are invited to become the schoolmasters of increasing numbers of Asiatics, to liberally pay the said Asiatics for their labor in learning in order that the education thus obtained may be used, not for the benefit if America, but in order that these unprofitable pupils may hasten the day "when Japan will be able to compete with the countries that have occupied the field in all lines of manufactured goods." It is, indeed, an alluring prospect--for the Japanese.

The opinions and the hopes expressed by Baron Shibuzawa are those that are freely avowed by nearly all the leaders of the Japanese forward movement, and quotations to that affect might be multiplied almost ad nauseam. This is the tune of Japanese advance, the refrain that is endlessly played by her statesmen and her manufacturers. She has borne no part whatever in the advance of the world, but she none the less quietly assumes her right to seize and to hold the products of skill that was not her own and of the energy, the perseverance and the self-sacrifice in which she has had neither part nor lot. There is a point to which the whole world may rightfully profit by the advance of any of its parts, but that point has been passed, when it involves the forcible dispossession of the rightful owner by selfish and cruel competition.

WANTS TO BE SPOILED CHILD.

We need not, however, occupy our space with quotations from the published intentions of Japan to forcibly assume a position and a power that she has not earned. Such quotations as found in the press of the whole world have already become monotonous, and that the intentions therein avowed are not mere verbiage is sufficiently shown by the hungry hordes that have already invaded the more accessible territories of civilization. Japan, as an industrial nation, wishes to be the spoiled child of civilization whose excesses of naughtiness do but call forth admiration and applause.

It will, therefore, be more interesting to select a few illustrations of authoritative Japanese opinions on the problem of immigration itself, and out of

a considerable amount of material we will choose two only as representing somewhat divergent views. We have already reminded ourselves of the uneasiness created by the Japanese influx of the year 1900 and of the protests that became so audible as to arouse attention in Japanese Government circles. At that time it seemed as though restrictive measures on the part of the United States Government were actually in sight, although such measures were obviated by the apparent disposition of Japan to handle the situation in a satisfactory manner. That restrictive measures on the part of America would have been intensely distasteful to Japanese sentiment is shown by the remonstrances that reached this country, remonstrances that appeared to have no basis of reason whatever and to be founded simply on consternation at the prospect of the Japanese marauding hand being stayed. The first and perhaps the most notable of these letters was addressed to Professor Jordan of Stanford University by Professor Mitsukuri of the University of Japan, and it was communicated by Professor Jordan to the American Review of Reviews. It reads, in part, as follows:

"It is, therefore, with a sort of incredulity that we receive the news that some sections of the American people are clamoring to have a law passed prohibiting the landing of Japanese in America. It is easily conceivable to the intelligent Japanese that there may be some undesirable elements among the lower-class Japanese who emigrate to the Pacific Coast, but if such proves to be the case, after due investigation by proper authorities, the remedy might easily be sought, it appears to us, by coming to a diplomatic understanding on the matter and by eliminating the objectionable features. The Japanese Government would, without doubt, be open to reason. * * For my own part, I cannot think that the American people will fail in this matter in their sense of justice and fair play toward a weaker neighbor, and such a movement as the present must, it seems to me, pass away like a nightmare."

LEAVE IT TO THE JAP.

The Review of Reviews, commenting, upon this letter, says: "The coolie labor question is a wholly different thing, and that we may safely leave to the discretion of the Japanese Government. The main point to be borne in mind is the great desirability of doing nothing to offend the nation which, of all others in the world, probably entertains the most genuine and unaffected feeling of friendship toward our country. Japan will apply the tests, and we may safely be hospitable to those who come."

Now it is by no means easy to comment in a satisfactory manner upon such productions as these. In neither instance does the writer seem to have any conception whatever of the vitality and the magnitude of the interests involved. With all due deference to Professor Mitsukuri's learning and to the position that he occupies, we would suggest to him that the presence of "some undesirable elements among the lower-class Japanese who emigrate to the Pacific Coast" is in no way whatever to be minimized nor contradicted.

These statements were already justified when Professor Mitsukuri wrote his letter to Professor Jordan and their justification is now intensified a hundred fold. The "undesirable elements" that the professor admits may perhaps, exist not only do exist, but they constitute the great bulk of Japanese immigration, and California is of the opinion not only that these elements are "undesirable," but that they are an insupportable plague and inconsistent with the preservation of American prosperity and happiness. This is not a matter for academic discussion either by college professors or by an indifferent officialism. It is a matter within the common knowledge of the common people and it has been stamped upon their minds not by the theoretical disquisitions of quid nuncs and of "proper authorities," but by the stern preceptors of misery, or want and of penury.

The lofty atmosphere in which the Japanese professor possibly sits many be far removed from the dread anxieties of the common life, and his "caste" may be above that of the working millions that constitute the real American Nation, but this is a question for decision by those same working millions who are not accustomed to be waved upon one side by the professorial hand nor to await the official leisure of those of those whose acquaintances with the stern realities of life is one only of theory or of speculation.

The workman of the Pacific Coast knows well that under the present conditions of Asiatic competition his life is becoming insupportable and he is resolved to better those conditions,

lest perchance he should become abject like his Asiatic competitor, the coolie of Japan.

AMERICA WILL NOT FAIL.

When Professor Mitsukuri says: "For my own part I cannot think that the American people will fall in this matter in their sense of justice and fair play toward a weaker neighbor," we recognize that his limitations are probably those of knowledge and not of conscience. For his satisfaction we may say that the American people will not fail in their sense of justice and fair play, but that these virtues, like charity, begin at home.

The writer in the Review of Reviews seems to be equally far removed from the common round and from the considerations of daily bread that move his less fortunate countrymen on the Pacific Coast. With all due reverence for the mental stature that is able to view mankind "from India to Peru," we would urge that "the main point to be borne in mind" is not the risk of offending any nation upon earth, but rather the risk of offending even the least among our own people by injustice or by oppression." The writer in the Review of Reviews seems to have gone to school to the Asiatic and to have learned the lessons in servility that only the Asiatic can impart.

There is no risk whatever in justly offending any nation in the world, but there would be a very great and a very real risk if such sentiments as the foregoing should ever become the sentiments of the American people. At any rate, they are not yet the sentiments of the Pacific Coast.

The second letter from which we will quote was called forth by the same circumstances as the communication from Professor Mitsukuri. It was written by Y. Ozaki and it appeared in the North American Review. It reads in part:

"And now we find Americans trying to exclude Japanese from the United States. I may remark that, in common with most intelligent Japanese, I am totally opposed to Japanese immigration as at present conducted, and that on three grounds. In only too many cases the peasants are decoyed by the agents of emigration companies who have no thought beyond the amount of the dividend they declare. In the second place the uneducated peasant is but ill-equipped to fight the battle of life in a foreign land; and, in the third place, emigration on a large scale might very easily involve Japan in unnecessary diplomatic complications with foreign powers--a thing which her statesmen are especially anxious to avoid. But with all that, it yet remains true that the present attitude of a certain section of the American people toward Japanese immigrants argues a certain lack of acquaintance with, or a certain misunderstanding of, the history of the intercourse between the two countries. It must not be forgotten that the standard of living here is much lower than it is in the West. Although that is certainly rising apace, yet the wants of the great body of our population are few and simple. To the Japanese farmer 'three acres and a cow' are not at all a vital necessity. With his family he can live pretty comfortably on his 3 tau 3 se (four-fifths of an acre) of the old popular song."

TOO ACADEMIC.

Now, first of all, we would ask why the objection of the Californian workman to be dispossessed and starved should "argue a certain lack of acquaintance with the history of the intercourse between the two countries?" If this is a case of cause and effect, their relationship appears to be somewhat obscure.

Mr. Ozaki, like his compatriot, the professor, is too academic and possibly fails to consider that even the masses have appetites and needs and that the Californian workman is unable to feed and clothe himself and his family upon the history of Japan, interesting as that history undoubtedly is. Our complaint against the Japanese immigrant is that he makes it increasingly difficult for the American workman to get his living, and that he lowers and vitiates and demoralizes the standards of American life, and, as a remedy, Mr. Ozaki suggests a study of Japanese history. We know a better remedy than that, and we would in turn suggest to Mr. Ozaki a study of American history, with special reference to the status of American citizens regardless of caste.

Mr. Ozaki's injunction to remember the low standards of Japanese life we will endeavor to keep faithfully in mind. We are not, indeed, likely to forget them while they are so unpleasantly obtruded upon our physical senses. The picture that Mr. Ozaki draws of Japanese life and of its Spartan simplicities is doubtless a beautiful one in Japan, and we trust that it may long continue to have the perspective that is now its main charm. Nor do we object to the Japanese popular song extolling the beauties of a contented penury, but we do not wish to hear that song in America.