Problem of the Colored Races.
America's Curse and Australia's Peril.
In the course of an interesting interview by an Express representative with Colonel Albert Wyatt, who has been representing the "Sydney Mail" and "S.M. Herald," in the Richmond and Tweed districts, that gentleman stated : —
I have been reading with small interest and great amusement the many cables and caustic comments contained in the Australian press anent the prospective war between America and Japan. I have been inclined to air my views and ventilate the question from an American point of view, but the fear of the waste basket and your proverbial conservatism has so far prevented my wielding the broad-axe. But since you have given me your personal and kindly assurance that my effusion will not die "abornin" or come into contract with the editorial blue pencil, I am going to publish—
Right or wrong,
Fools are my theme, let satire be my song !
I don't know the source of inspiration of some of these American-Japanese war squibs, but many of them are circulated to excite the risibilities of a poley cow. For instance, I read a cablegram the other day in which the "Japanese 'calmly' deprecated the extreme 'nervousness' of the Americans." May the Lord help the Japs if Uncle Sam becomes the least bit hysterical over this affair. The Yankees' last spell of nervousness in 1898 is still fresh in the minds of thinking people, when Spain was crushed and lost the last of her possessions. The readers of history will have no trouble in naming other occasions on which the Americans became nervous, and if the Japanese do not think Uncle Sam's buzz-saw revolves at the rate of a million revolutions per minute, then the wily Orientals are no judges of machinery.
Let us very briefly view the rise and progress of Japan as a nation — not as a "world-power," as some erroneously designate her. Forty-one years ago Japan was a sealed door so far as the civilised world was concerned. In 1886 Commodore Peary went over from America with a few gunboats and compelled Japan to open her doors to the trade and commerce of the world. Prior to that time civil wars and internal dissension was the history of Japan. With the greatest variety of timber in the world and marvellous mineral resources, they had neither been builders, nor manufacturers as we know them to-day. Their first gunboat was a birthday present from Queen Victoria to the Emperor, and their first lesson in navigation was learned from an Englishman. The rise and progress of Japan has been wonderful, and has excited the admiration of the world. But let us not forget that American and English influences have been responsible for this, to say nothing of what Germany has taught her. The Japanese have, however, only proven themselves as imitators, and imitation is not greatness. They proved to be game little fighters in their comic affair with China and during the Boxer rebellion, and again in the more serious contest with Russia. But they have not convinced us of their prowess in "grim visaged war" with a white race. Their conquest of a handful of half-starved Russian peasants, whom you could not dignify with the name of solders, was entirely due to the moral backing of English and the financial aid of America ; and in the light of recent developments it is nothing to the credit of the great Anglo-Saxon nations for them to have used the Jap as a cat's paw to humiliate Russia. They are repaying us with the usual dose of ingratitude that is truly characteristic of the Oriental race. But as to a war with America, the people of Australia can take the word of a Yankee, who knows the Jap very well, that this blustering little island empire wants none. Those who tremble at the mightiness of the Jap should get down their old school books and read the story of the bull frog and the ox. Or they could review the history of the Turk, who in his march across the East, conquered all the peoples of his own race and colour he came in contact with, until he thought himself invincible,and twisted the tail of the old British lion, when lo ! and behold, he received the drubbing the Anglo-Saxon always gives his enemies. History repeats itself, and the Jap proves it.
I have said that Japan wants no war with America, but I have not said that California is not striving might and main to precipitate trouble. President McKinley and his administration sought in vain to allay the temper of the American nation to prevent the Spanish-American war, but the Yankees were 'nervous,' and the result is now history. President Roosevelt now occupies exactly the same position as his illustrious predecessor, and it yet remains to be seen if he can stem the current of public opinion and prevent the Californians from obtaining the thing "devoutly wished for." Now-a-days wars are waged for trade and commerce, and if war comes the inevitable result would be American occupation of Manchuria and Korea, and the absolute domination of America and England in the Pacific and throughout the East.
The Anglo-Saxon race has nothing in common with the Japanese race. The one stands for all the highest Christian ideals, of humanity, patriotism, morality, and commercial integrity. The other has no God but their Emperor, no standard of morality, and is positively void of business integrity. I was on the staff of a leading journal of San Francisco for fifteen years, and speak by the letter. I know personally and intimately dozens of San Francisco merchants who have attempted to establish relations with Japanese tradesmen in Yokohama, Tokio, and other cities, much to their sorrow and financial loss. I have seen the Japanese come to San Francisco, and after a few years of good wage-earning return to Japan, marry a wife, and return with her to San Francisco and live a life of luxury on the proceeds of her shame, and then brazenly admit the hideous fact on the witness stand when hauled into court. I could recite many instances of their moral depravity and questionable business methods, in comparison to which the Chinese people are et sans et reproche.
The monkeyshines of the Japanese are really amusing. It may be that this is neither a polite nor a considerate word for international consumption, but the behaviour of Japanese political agitators shows an unfortunate disposition to ape the manners of a world power without having learned the game. If these manners of the Japanese are good there would be little criticism, but the headlong indulgence in bad manners presents these half baked politicians in a light that is purely grotesque. The Hochi, and the Jiji, and the Nichi Nichi, and the rest of the pack are in full cry. A window was broken in San Francisco and a three-legged stool demolished. Immediately the Jap statesman calls for blood—buckets of blood. And he gets it. But the one who sheds the blood happens to be the Oriental, as was instanced by cablegrams from San Francisco, where a few Japs were killed in a riot, which, I have no doubt, was caused by their impudence.
It is memory still fresh that when the peace of Portsmouth was made the Japanese in Tokio threw rocks at Mr. Harriman and other Americans. I fear it, was a case of race prejudice pure and simple, because, really, the Japs had no personal grievance against Mr. Harriman. Yet the people of America did not demand instant war or swear to be avenged. Americans do not carry a chip on their shoulder.
When the Japanese complained that their innocent children were excluded from the schools of San Francisco— which was not true — America, through its highest officials— took extraordinary and unprecedented action to pacify a touchy people. Doubtless, the politeness and consideration with which they were treated on that occasion have been construed as cowardice. It may be that this statement is unfair to the Japanese nation as a whole, but it is warranted by the behaviour of the crowd that appears to be doing politics in Japan, and are making all the noise. But there is a limit, where baboonery ceases to be amusing. There is one inexorable conclusion enforced by these and many other occurrences, and it is that the Japanese are undesirable neighbors. They are trouble breeders, and their presence in America and your fair and wonderful Australian Commonwealth is a constant menace. I can make a local application of this statement for Lismore. Nearly every day, from my place of residence in that city I can see a Japanese laundryman sailing along the footpath on his bike yelling at the school children to get out of his way. And yet a white butcher is summoned and fined for riding along the footpath in the pursuit of his legitimate calling for orders.
In conclusion I wish to assure my Australian cousins that they have no occasion to be solicitous about America's ability to deal satisfactorily with the Japanese. Our safety from all trouble is absolute exclusion of the Japanese race, and California has about reached the point where polite invitations to leave will be supplanted with more effective, if forcible methods.
I have been asked my opinion as to the attitude of England in her treaty with Japan in case of war with America. The question is too silly to notice. "Blood is thicker than water."
I notice that the Australian Press is reproducing some of the writings of Henry Labouchre on this momentous question. Labouchre is unquestionably an able writer, and to the uninitiated his opinions would carry some weight, but to those acquainted with the man and his genealogy he is but a feeble imitator of the great negro writer of drama and fiction, Alexander Dumas. Dumas, by sheer force of his great genius, and ability, forced the French public to give him social recognition, and he even gained a white wife. The great ambition of his life was to gain social recognition for his race, and many of his wonderful productions were along this line, but the literary student well knows how signal was his failure. And now comes his latest imitator, Labouchre, who not only demands equality for the dark races, but makes the astounding statement that Japan has made it clear to us that she must be accepted as our equal in all things, internationally, commercially, and socially . . . which will go to alter the course of the world's history." Social equality, as we understand it, would mean intermarriage between the white and dark races, and should this obtain the Anglo-Saxon family would completely disappear in about five generations, considering that the dark races out number us by nearly eight to one. Thus you see the utter preposterousness of Labouchre's claims. In America we have stringent miscegnation laws that absolutely preclude the possibility of marriage or intermarriage, or cohabiting between whites and blacks.
And, furthermore, we have a constitutional prohibition for all dark races becoming naturalized citizens, except the native-born descendants of African slaves. We do not tolerate the least semblance of social equality in America. Before and during the great civil war there was never a case of assault of white women by negroes. After the war a miscellaneous collection of long-haired preachers and slat-brained women came out of the northern and eastern States into the southern States, preaching social equality to the ignorant negroes and advocating marriage among the whites and blacks. This was the beginning of the outrages in which mob law had its origin. Some of the crimes committed by the blacks fairly staggered humanity. I know of one case where a four-year-old girl was torn from her cradle at night, while her parents slept, and carried into the bush and murdered by a lustful negro brute. The fiend was captured, and burned in the presence of 100,000 people. This occurred in Paris, Texas, U.S.A., and shortly after the burning a mass meeting was held in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, at which a set of resolutions were adopted, bitterly condemning the people of Texas for their inhuman treatment of the negro. In less than 24 hours after that resolution was adopted the man who presided over the meeting as chairman went home to find his twelve-year-old daughter the victim of a negro rape fiend. The father led a mob that lynched the negro to a lamp post in one of the streets of Philadelphia. It was a terrible retribution, but it taught the North the lesson that rape fiends must expect no sympathy.
I merely cite these cases in refutation of the teachings of such men as Dumas and Labouchre and the appalling condition of things that would necessarily ensue if it were possible for their ideas to prevail. And I want to say, in all candor and kindness, that Australia is confronted with a social problem to day that is destined to lead to endless trouble unless something is done to check the mixture of the races. In one town on the South Coast I saw over twenty white women married to Hindoos, Chinese, and Japs! The largest and wealthiest merchants in the town were Asiatics. I am not a man of high race prejudice or hatred. But I am unutterably opposed to the mixture of white and black races, and if I could but sound a note of warning that would cause Australia to awake and confront logically and sensibly an awful condition of things I would feel that I had done at least one good thing in my life.
I want to notice another silly assertion made by Labonchere anent the trouble between America and Japan. He says "If it comes to a fight between the two countries, the odds are that Japan would come out the victor." I could assert with equal impunity that if it came to a fight between Corea and Japan the last named would be victims. Assertions are not proof and when we deal with facts the idle vaporings of Labouchre's well-tuned mind become absolutely ridiculous. When the Treaty of Portsmouth was signed Japan was the worst whipped nation that ever went to war. Russia was compelled to sign the treaty of peace by America and England, and, as I have stated previously, it was an outrage. Lineivitch was ready to hurl against the Japanese forces an army that would have inevitably resulted in the utter defeat and rout of the land forces. The Japanese were actually out of ammunition and the diplomatic compulsion of the two great Anglo-Saxon nations was welcomed by the already defeated Orientals. If Labouchre wanted to deal in facts; and not fancy he would compare the strength of America and Japan on a war footing. America could arm and equip an army of 8,000,000 in twelve months, while the fighting strength of Japan is only 750,000. America has 52 battleships and first and second class cruisers, while Japan has only 12, and the guns on these ships are absolutely worthless since the Russian war. To-day Japan is practically bankrupt, and as money is the sinews of war, she would be actually helpless. Compare the colossal wealth of America with a country that can't pay the interest on the money borrowed for its recent war and you are confronted with a condition and not a theory.
I am a Yankee, and, like the balance of my great family, I like to boast, and my boast now is that if these conditions were reversed— if Japan had our money and our numerical strength and money, and we were as weak as Japan, a war would result, as it always does, in favor of the Anglo-Saxon as against the dark races.
Richmond River Express and Casino Kyogle Advertiser (NSW 1907, )http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article132420644
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