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Show JAPAN'S "UNMORALITY" t i Setting Forth in Formal Phrase the Distinction and the Difference of a Racial Habit Which Would Be Deemed Highly Immoral if it Were Not the Hereditary Trait of a Proud, Sensitive and Conspicuously Honorable People. Objection has been urged to the Japanese on the ground of their Immorality, and this objection has obtruded modestly and tentatively in some of our discussions concerning the desirability of permitting Japanese young men to learn their English in the primary mixed city schools where many of the pupils are white girls of tender age. I suppose that it would be almost equivalent to a declaration of war to Insist that the Japanese are an immoral people. Therefore I will accept the statement of some very nice observers to the purpose that the Japanese are not Immoral that they are only unmoral. This unmorality of the Japanese has been excused ex-cused by their friends upon the plea that it is only by comparison with -western morality that they may be judged and that this comparison is unfair to the Japanese because they have always been unmoral. Their unmorality is hereditary and racial. The Japanese have never had opportunity oppor-tunity to be otherwise. I am not aware, however, that this defense of Japanese morals, or unmorals, has ever been urged as sufficient reason why a Japanese "schoolboy" twenty years of age should b taught his English in the same class with white girls of ten and twelve years of age. The unmorality of the Japanese not only appertains apper-tains to their sexual relations which are as loose as any immorality practiced by the western nations, na-tions, but extends to all their dealings with the foreigner and to some degree in their own business busi-ness affairs. All the banks of Japan employ the notoriously honest Chinese to handle the money of the banks. Two reasons are assigned for this pieference: In the first place the Chinese are adepts in the manipulation of coin either In the counting or In the detection of bad or short weight money. The other reason is because the Japanese are afraid to trust "scroffs" or money counters and bank tellers of their own race. In their dealings with foreigners the Japanese tradesmen are absolutely unscrupulous and as dishonest dis-honest as the profit of that sort of thing may demand. de-mand. The godowns of Yokohama are, at this moment, crammed with foreign goods which the purchasers have refused on delivery because the price has receded since the contract for the consignment con-signment was signed. Any excuse for violation of contracts of this nature is sufficient. I know ot one instance where a quantity of yarn was ordered or-dered by a firm of which the manager of the Yokohama Specie Bank was the director, and refused re-fused because the color did not suit the purchasers, purchas-ers, but in fact because the "price of "purple ho-kuroka" ho-kuroka" had fallen on the local market. The case was carried into the Japanese courts and a decision promptly rendered against the foreign p'aintiffs. Another instance of precisely similar character but involving all Japanese was decided in favor of the plaintiffs. The Japanese may be a "proud, honorable and sensitive" people, but these virtues do not operate to compel honesty in commercial transactions between be-tween the Japanese and their foreign creditors or foreign customers. The foreigner who goes to Japan must expect to be skinned, bunkoed and robbed. He must expect to pay five times as much as would be charged to a Japanese for everything ev-erything he eats, drinks or wears. Even the "lips" demanded in the hotels and restaurants are as ten to one of those given by a native. A jinricksha jin-ricksha coolie will invariably charge a foreigner fifty cents American monoy for the service that would cost a Japanese about ten cents. I have H appealed to the police of Japanese cities many m times against this extortion, and my protest has 1 resulted sometimes in reduction of the larceny B from the grand to the petty variety prohably a m little more than double the legal charge. M Japanese who do not happen to bo "in trade" M are free to admit the utter dishonesty of their B fellow countrymen in commerce; but they aver M that it is the consequence of contact with the m trading foreigner who would cheat the Jap out of m hip. back teeth if the Jap did not first apply the 1 forceps. Perhaps that is true, but since the M Japanese have learned the tricks of the game H 'they are able to win against cards, spades and H big casino. On the principle that "the first blow H Is half the battle," and acting on the golden rule m yt "doing others before they do you," the Japan- 1 ese merchant and tradesman will stop at nothing H 1o pick the pockets of all foreigners who may H 'ccme within reach of his pilfering fingers. H Early marriages are the invariable rule In H Japan. I have it upon the best authority that H 'the effect on the men of Japan under this custom H is to change the date of their wild-oats sowing, H i making It come after wedlock instead of before. H 'Divorce is more common in Japan than in the H llnited States or Europe. Such statistics as are H 'favailable show that the general proportion of H divorces to marriage has been nearly as 1 to 3, H !?ond in the most favorable years nearly as 1 to 4. H l' These divorces are, for the most part, among the H j 'lower classes. The "honorable" upper class sa- H 'imurai rarely resort to divorce because the social H ethics of Japan does not impose even the lightest H moral obligation upon a husband who has tired of H his wife he may have as many mistresses a3 H ho is able to support, live with them openly and H take them into a very good section of Japanese H "society." H In Japan it is not necessary to call a secondary M wife an "affinity." There is not the slightest pre- H tense of apology for a husband's notorious infidel- H "ity. He is not immoral; he is only "unmoral." H Temporary wives may be bought for more or less H money from their parents in Japan; and these H temporary marriages between Japanese girls and H foreigners are duly acknowledged by Japanese H law. I have personal knowledge of three men H, teachers in the public school department of the K' Philippines who went to Japan on their annual H vacation and were immediately temporarily mar- H ried to three pretty Japanese girls whose par- B ents were paid the equivalent of fifteen Ameri- H can dollars for a three months' privilege. The H girls only received their board, the ingredients B of which they prepared for themsplves and their Br "husbands," thus serving the double function of fe "wives" and servants. The central idea of the H Luther Long drama "Madame Butterfly" is no fa- H ' ble; but the dramatic climax Is wholly untrue. m No Japanese "wife" would karl-kari herself for H love of a foreign "husband." She would merely B abide her chance of getting another. The de- H nouement of Pierre Loti's story of Madame Vy Chrysanthemum Is nearer the Japanese fact. LW Those who have read the Frenchman's book will i" remember that after he had paid Madame Chrysanthemum Chrys-anthemum the final installment of her "dower" ho -went back to their abode to what the little ' lady was doing; hoping to find her crying her Mif brown eyes out with grief at parting with one -whom she had a thousand times declared she H loved above all the men to whom she had pre- Hj viously been "married." He found the musme W biting the yen he h$d poured into the sleeve of B; her kimono, to be sure that they were all genuine! Vm. Three times a year the courtesans of the yosh- m iwaras parade the streets of Kioto and the broad H thoroughfares of the 'iNightless City" of Toklo. jj The first of these "unmoral" spectacles is in the B'l spring to celebrate the coming of the cherry-blos- Bi soms; in summer the women exhibit themselves B In honor of the blooming of the purple iris; and v again in autumn when the chiysanthemum (is in iK Its glory, they appear clad in their "yujo" silks and biocades aflame with scarlet and gold, vc w-ing w-ing their "obis" tied in front, their coiffures a marvel of architectural grotesquerie, their faces white with powder, their eyelashes black, their lips vermilion and their toe-nails pink. These exhibitions are witnessed by thousands of the "unmoral" citizens of the -cities in which they are presented open-mouthed with delight at the magnificence of the highly edifying spectacle. Ask your "schoolboy" servant about the yoshl-wara yoshl-wara of Japan and its peculiar customs he will tell you all about it and never bat an eye. He sees nothing immoral in the Japanese method of promoting and encouraging the social evil; he regards it from his western point of view as only "unmoral" and greatly superior to the western method of repression and suppression. And after he has given you a minute description of the yoshiwara from personal observation and experience experi-ence he will go to his class in the public school to learn his English at the same spurce from which little white girls are learning to read in their second readers. Of course, there can be no harm fromthis contiguity, for, as I have repeatedly repeat-edly told you, the Japanese are not an immoral people they are merely "unmoral"; they have never known the morals of the western world. Yet, as we are informed by that eminent moralist mo-ralist and moralizer, Theodore Roosevelt, unless we receive these "unmoral" persons into our most intimate civic relationship, there is going to be trouble. We have no right under the treaty to keep these people out of our country on any pretext pre-text whatever. Well, since it has been so ordained or-dained by this high and mighty authority, let us submit. Let us not only submit, but let us also invite. Let us encourage this "unmoral" immigration immi-gration to the utmost and when we have as many as we can accommodate in California let us send the surplus to the eastern states. What we need in this country is a strong infusion of "unmoral" blood and I know of no more "unmoi U" expedient expe-dient for this transfusion than the one I have suggested. sug-gested. Anyway, according to the dark hlntsgf Governor Gillett and Speaker Stanton we must accept ac-cept the immorality of the situation whether we want it or not; therefore, let us accept It with such grace as we may. Perhaps It Is better to obey the edict of the Mikado through the ukase lof our own Mikado than to risk a general cutting j of our throats by the Mikado's invincible army of , veteran soldiers. Town Talk. I ' |