Life — February 25, 1904 — page 4: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

“\ While there is Life there's Hope.” VOL. XLUL FEB. 25, 1904. No. 1113. 19 Wasr Taixty-Fist St., New Yore. Published, every Taursday 0 a year in ad- vance. Postage to foreign Counties the Postal Gace. soe yar Derk at le current copies, era after three months from dace of publication. 2 coats No contribution will be returned untess accompanied by stamped and addressed envelope. The illustrations in Live are copyrighted, and are not to be reproduced, Prompt notification should be sent by sub- scribers of any change of address, E regret to see P signs of ill- feeling be- tween the Russians and Japanese. Itis averred at St. Petersburg, and echoed in Paris, that the Japs started before the word was given. At Tokio they don’t admit it, and London opinion, and our own professors of propriety, hold that the severing of diplomatic relations was all the notice necessary. There is no referee who can settle this disputed point, and the war has had to go right on, but the incident has made the combatants angry, which is a great pity. War is @ strenuous game at best, and even when conducted with sentiments of high matual esteem between the con- testants is apt to yield incidents where- at the judicious grieve. But when rancorous feelings sharpen the natural desire to excel, the resulting incidents may disgust the judicious altogether. Already we find Russian newspapers declaring that Japan’s impudence shall receive such a retribution as shall be remembered in Asia to the crack of doom. Isany such retribution coming? It does not look like it at this writing. The hornets filled the bear with stings before he had fairly waked up. Ina day Japan reduced the immediate efficiency of Russia’s naval force by nine important ships, and gave tho world a strong first impression that on the sea, at least, Russia is not a match for her. HO are we Americans for in this fight? Japan looks little. Rus- sia looks big. We are affected by the natural propensity of observers to take sides with “the little ’un.” We ad- mire the Japanese. They are wonder- ful people. In many ways they seem more civilized than the Russians or ourselves, A closely united and intensely patriotic people who have set out to make the utmost of themselves in the least possible time, they have reached ont eagerly for whatever the Western world had that seemed good tothem. They have seized upon eda- cation and military discipline, guns, warships, all the apparatus of power. They have bought the tools of modern war, and have set themselves with in- tense industry to learn to use them. We have to sympathize with a race so eager, 80 active, and yet so self-con- tained. On the other side is great sleepy Russia, with her limitless territory and a population three times as numer- ous as Japan’s, governed in the Czar’s name, but Heaven knows by whom or how. Russia is mighty, but she is pathetic too; a sluggish giant, strug- gling through superstition, despotism and ignorance towards civilization. She is so strong that she is feared; her ambition is boundless, her policies never change. The minds that shape her course are strong and they are re- lentless. She can bide her time, she can fight and be worsted, but she will still struggle on towards the fulfilment of what she takes to be her destiny. Ps is impossible not to sympathize with Russia too. She aspires to be the ruling power in Asia. Wo Americans can well endure to see her aspirations limited in that direction, for we too have an interest in Asia and want to trade there, especially with China, without asking Russia’s leave. We don't mind seeing the Russian encroachments checked. We are glad to see Japan hold her own, and even make good her reasonable aspirations as to Korea. But if this first blaze of Japanese success should be maintained, and maintained ashore as well as on the sea, a new series of con- siderations and of sympathies are likely to begin working in our minds, Russia is our old-time friend; Russia is white, Japan is yellow. There is a limit to the amount of checking we can see Russia receive at the hands of Japan without grave concern. We know and like Japan as a nation that aspires. We den’t know her so well as a nation that has realized her aspira- tions, and we cannot tell beforehand how well we would like her under those conditions, There are possibilities of enormous interest in this set-to between Japan and Russia, and where we will be and how we will feel when it is over are things not easy to forecast. Ze YD 4 ALTIMORE has not had a fair show with her fire. Such a fire as she had entitled her to our close at- tention for weeks. She should have held the middle of the stage and the best outside columns of the papers for ten days at least. But along with the news that she was burning up, there came on February 7 the first word of this Russian-Japanese war. The next day, when we ought to have been toting up Baltimore's losses and send- ing her telegrams of sympathy and encouragement, we were buying penny papers every half hour to get the war news. It wasaskame. Weare extremely sorry she got so burned. We grieve at her losses; we admire her pluck, but we feel with special intensity that as long as she was making such a spectacle of herself, it was too bad that there should have been any considerable simultaneous exhibition elsewhere. comicbooks.com