ON THE GREAT • HIGHWAY •
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ON THE GREAT • HIGHWAY •
THE WANDERINGS AND AD- VENTURES OF A SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT * * *
BY JAMES CREELMAN
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LOTHROP PUBLISHING COMPANY BOSTON
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1901, |
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BY LOTHROP |
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ALL RIGHTS |
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. HALL • |
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PUBLISHED IN OCTOBER
PREFACE
THESE pages from the experiences of a busy man are intended to give the public some idea of the processes of modern journalism which are gradually assimi- lating the human race. The newspaper reader, who sits comfortably at home and surveys the events of the whole world day by day, seldom realizes the costly enterprise and fierce effort employed in the work of bringing the news of all countries to his fireside; nor does he fully appreciate the part which the press is rapidly assuming in human affairs, not only as historian and commentator, but as a direct and active agent.
The author has attempted to give the origi- nal color and atmosphere of some of the great events of his own time, and leaves the duty of moralizing to his indulgent patrons. The human nature of men and women everywhere
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* PREFACE *
is strikingly alike, — at least the author has found it so, — and if that fact has been demon- strated in this book, its purpose has been served.
The frequent introduction of the author's personality is a necessary means of remind- ing the reader that he is receiving the testi- mony of an eyewitness.
CONTENTS
Chapter Page
I. The White Shepherd of Rome . n
II. The Storming of Ping Yang . . 32 ///. Interview with the King of Corea . 5 5 IF". A Ride with the Japanese Invaders
in Manchuria .... 74
V. Battle and Massacre of Port A rthur 94
VI. The Avatar of Count Tolstoy ' ... 120
VII. Tolstoy and his P eople . . .141
VIII. "The Butcher" . . . .157
IX. Familiar Glimpses of Yellow Jour-
nalism 174
X. Battle of El Caney . . .194 XL Heroes of Peace and War . .217 XII. A Talk with Kossuth . . .242 XI IL The Czar on his Knees . . .256 XIV. Greeks on the Verge of War . . 268
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CONTENTS
Chapter Page
XV. Sitting Bull . . . .294
XVI. On the Firing Line in the Philip-
pines . . . .313
XVII. A Race with a Woman for the
Cable ..... 336
XVIII. In the Black Republic . .357
XIX. Newsgathering in the Clouds . 381
XX. McKinley, the Forgiving . . 403
ILL usr RATIONS
James Creelman . . . Frontispiece
Facing Page
Leo XIII 14
The King of Core a . . . . .58
Count Tolstoy . . . . . 1 24
The Charge at El Caney . . . .198
Louis Kossuth . . . . . . 246
King George of Greece . . . .272
Sitting Bull 298
William McKinley 406
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CHAPTER I
The White Shepherd of Rome
IT was all very well to sit at an editorial desk in Paris and plan an interview with the Pope. But I had not been a week in Rome before I began to understand the seeming hopelessness of carrying profane American journalism into the presence of the white Vicar of Christ, sitting at the heart of the mysterious Vatican.
There was an enchanting sense of adven- ture in the thing. Yet a thousand years of unbroken tradition stood between me and the august head of the Christian world, whose predecessors had turned sceptres to dust and blotted out kingdoms.
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The pavements and walls of the venerable city seemed to mock me. The stately cardi- nals listened and shook their heads. There was no precedent. The bare thought of a newspaper correspondent interviewing the Pope violated every sentiment of Papal history, from St. Peter to Leo XIII. The Apostolic Secre- tary of State, Cardinal Rampolla, advised me to abandon the idea. The Vicar General of Rome, Cardinal Parocchi, smiled at my enthusiasm and urged me not to waste any time on an impossible mission. Still I went from one prince of the Church to another, from palace to palace, from cathedral to cathedral.
The persistent spirit developed in an Ameri- can newspaper office is not easily daunted. As the difficulties gathered, my ambition to interview the Pope grew more intense. It became an absorbing passion. It was with me when I wandered in the crumbling palaces of the Caesars or walked among the ruins of the Roman forum. It haunted me among the tombs of the popes in St. Peter's. I dreamed of it at night.
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And when every Cardinal and Bishop' in Rome seemed to stand in the way, I went to Turin and entreated Cardinal Allimonde, King Humbert's friend, to help me. Alas ! no ; the Cardinal assured me that my quest was bound to end in failure. There were some things that American journalism could not accomplish.
Then to see Cardinal San Felice, the ven- erable "Saint of Naples." The gentle old man listened to the story of my efforts to see the Pope and shook his snowy head dis- couragingly.
" I cannot help you, my son," he said. " I know that it would be a great thing for a newspaper writer to be the first to interview the Holy Father. But I am too old to go to Rome to assist you, and a letter would ac- complish little. The throne of St. Peter is guarded in a thousand ways against the shock of change, and what you propose would upset the traditions of ages. Still, Leo XIII. is a broad-minded, far-seeing statesman, and if he thought that a newspaper interview would serve the cause of Christianity he would not hesitate to make a new precedent."
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At this time kind fortune brought into my anxious life in Rome the friendship of an American sculptor, Chevalier Ezekiel, who lived and worked in a studio in the vine-grown ruins of the Baths of Diocletian. And to this friend I confided the tale of my attempts to penetrate the innermost door of the Vatican. As he sat there in his white sculptor's blouse and slanting velvet cap, beside a marble figure of the dead Christ, his face suddenly became radiant.
" I have it ! " he said, throwing his cap on the table. " Cardinal Hohenlohe will help you."
So straight to the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore we went, and found the Cardinal in his palace, a stout, rosy, witty, German prince, once the bosom friend of Pius IX. Within an hour the Cardinal promised to lay the matter before the Pope. Three days later he sent for me and announced that His Holiness had consented to be interviewed.
"When?" I asked.
"Ah!" said the Cardinal, "no one can tell that. Perhaps after a week; perhaps after
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six months. The Vatican moves slowly. It has the affairs of the whole world, civilized and uncivilized, to consider. You must wait. Rome will teach you how to be patient."
I left the palace drunken with joy. How my old comrades in New York would stare when they learned that I had reached the unreachable ! How my newspaper would herald the feat to the ends of the earth ! I could hardly keep my feet from dancing on the hot pavement. Rome, Rome, how I loved you that day !
The next day a message from Paris sent me to Brindisi to meet Henry M. Stanley, the explorer, who was on his way back from Africa, after rescuing Emin Pasha from the perils of the Equatorial Province. I was in the service of the newspaper that first sent Stanley into the "dark continent," and he gave me the materials for an exclusive de- spatch that, in other days, would have made me dizzy with pride. But as I walked along the stone quay of Brindisi with the weather- beaten man whose deeds had once inspired me with visions of the possibilities of my pro-
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fession, and heard him talk of the riches of Africa, my mind turned always to Rome. There was a terrible fear upon me. What if the Pope should send for me while I was away ? The thought filled me with agony.
Stanley had picked me out of a score of newspaper correspondents, who stood enviously watching us as we strolled along the shore of the sparkling Adriatic Sea. And yet I wished myself in another place.
Two days later I was in Rome again, and early the next morning a Papal chamberlain came to the hotel with a summons to the presence of the Pope. The invitation included Monsignor Frederick Z. Rooker, the scholarly Vice Rector of the American college, who was to act as interpreter.
The governments of Europe had practically confessed in conference at Berlin that they could do nothing to check the onward sweep of the tide of social discontent that threatened the peace of nations. The German Emperor's international council on the desperate question of capital and labor was an admitted failure. What would Leo XIII. say? Would he, too,
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admit that accumulated and concentrated wealth had brought into the world problems unsolvable except by brute force ?
No man can make that journey from the famous bronze portal of the Vatican into the presence of the imprisoned monarch, whom two hundred million human beings hail as the vice regent of Heaven and earth, without being thrilled from head to foot. I care not whether he be Protestant, Catholic, Jew, or pagan; whether he adores the Pope as the infallible Vicar of Christ, or regards him simply as the supreme teacher in a universal school — he will be profoundly moved by the solemnity and sug- gestiveness of that place.
To reach this sovereign of a ghostly empire we passed through the palace door that looks out upon the wide space in front of St. Peter's — once lighted by the burning bodies of Christian martyrs. Here stood a squad of the stalwart Swiss Guard, in brilliant costumes of red, yellow, and black, designed by Michael Angelb more than three hundred years ago. Ascending the royal stairway of marble that leads to the immortal Sistine Chapel, and turn-
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ing to the right, up a flight of ancient steps, we were saluted by the Gendarmes of St. Peter at the entrance of the open courtyard of St. Damasus, which is half surrounded by cor- ridors and halls glorified by the genius of Raphael, the tender colors glowing here and there through open windows.
This spot once echoed the steel-shod feet of Charlemagne. Here Napoleon stood among fawning cowards.
In one corner of the sunny courtyard was a cardinal's carriage and long-tailed horses ; a tall, thin Monsignor in purple silk rustled by, and a white pigeon wheeled in alarm through the air as the great chimes began to strike the hour. A picturesque sentry, leaning on an antique halberd, guarded the door of a great marble stairway leading from the opposite side of the court. Passing through the door and mount- ing the stairs, we came to the vast hall of St. Clement. Here figures of Justice, Mercy, and Faith looked down upon a jolly company of the Pope's soldiers sprawled comfortably on a wooden bench in a corner, their glittering hal- berds leaning against the brilliant wall. There
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was a ringing command uttered by some invisi- ble officer, and the next instant the row of red, black, and yellow guards was saluting a stately, scarlet cardinal who passed without raising his eyes.
Imagine the feelings of a young American writer moving through that palace of eleven thousand rooms to interview a king without territory — trying to preserve his heathen news instincts in such surroundings!
A burly, white-haired servitor in crimson silk and knee-breeches met us at the outer door of the Pope's apartments, and to him I delivered the document which called me to the Vatican. Through one splendid chamber after another he led us, among historic tapestries and princely trappings of bygone pontiffs, until we reached the throne room.
Here we sat until Leo XIII. was ready to receive us in the next room. The great golden throne under the royal canopy was the gift of the workingmen of Rome to the Pope. Above it shone a triple crown, surmounting the azure shield, silver bar, and cypress tree of the Pecci family. The Pope is proud to sit upon a
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throne given to him by the toilers of his own country.
After a while, a smiling chamberlain in pur- ple silk, with a resplendent gold chain hung about his neck, came from the inner chamber. He chatted with Monsignor Rooker and myself for a few moments and then, opening the door, preceded us into the presence of the august head of the Christian world.
There, behind all the pomp and ceremony, sat a gentle old man, with a sweet face and the saddest eyes that ever looked out of a human head — the quiet shepherd of Christendom. He sat in a chair of crimson and gold, set close to a table. Behind him was a carved figure of the Virgin, and near it a smaller throne. He wore a skull cap of white watered silk, and a snowy cassock flowed gracefully about his frail figure, a plain cross of gold hanging upon the sunken breast. It was a presence at once appealing and majestic.
That moment I forgot my newspaper and the news-thirsty multitudes of New York.
As we advanced to salute the Pope, he held out his thin, white hand, on which gleamed a
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great emerald. It was the Fisherman's Ring, the sign of Apostolic authority throughout the world. We knelt and kissed the outstretched hand, and Monsignor Rooker — being a Catho- lic— reverently pressed his lips to the gold- embroidered cross on the Pope's crimson velvet slipper.
His Holiness bade us be seated beside him. There was surprising vigor in his gestures, and his voice was clear, deep, and unwavering.
"You are very young," he remarked. "I expected to see an older man. But your nation is also young."
It is hard to describe the delicate courtesy and benignity of Leo XIII.'s manner.
" I have a claim upon Americans for their respect," he said with kindling eyes, "because I love them and their country. I have a great tenderness for those who live in that land — Protestants and all. Under the Con- stitution of the United States religion has perfect liberty and is a growing power for good. The Church thrives in the air of free- dom. I love and bless Americans for their frank, unaffected character and for the respect
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which they have for Christian morals and the Christian religion.
" The press — ah, what a power it is get- ting to be ! — the press and the Church should be together in the work of elevating mankind. And the American press should especially be amiable and benevolent toward me, because my only desire is to use my power for the good of the whole people, Prot- estants and Catholics alike."
The Pope looked at me intently for a moment.
"You are not one of the Faithful?" he said.
" I am what journalism has made of me."
"You are all my children," said the Pope, patting my hand like a father. " Protestants, Catholics — all, all, — God has placed me here to watch over and care for you. I have no other aim on earth than to labor for the good of the human race.
" I want the Protestants of America as well as the Catholics to understand me. The Vicar of Christ is respected in the United States, but it is not always so in Europe."
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There was an indescribable ring of pathos in the Pope's voice. His lips trembled.
"Here we have in temporal control men who feel nothing but hatred for the repre- sentative of Jesus Christ and offer constant insults to the Holy See. Enemies of God armed with governmental power seek not only to grieve and humble the Holy See in my person, but to utterly break down the in- fluence of religion, to disorganize and obliter- ate the Church, and to overthrow the whole system of morality upon which civilization rests. The power of paganism is at work in Europe again.
"These are times of social unrest and impending disorder. I recognize the good impulse that persuaded the German Emperor to assemble the Great Powers at Berlin and seek a cure for the disease that afflicts capital and labor. But there is no power that can deal with anarchy and social discontent, but organized religion. It alone can restore the moral balance to the human race. The result of the efforts which have been made by nations to live without Christian guidance can
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be seen in the present state of civilized society — discontent, hatred, and profound unhappi- ness.
" I have watched the growing helplessness of the suffering working classes throughout the world with anxiety and grief. I have studied how to relieve society of this terrible confusion. While I live I will labor to bring about a change. The troubles of the poor and heavy laden are largely due to enemies of Christian morality who want to see Christian history ended and mankind return to pagan ways.
" Human law cannot reach the real seat of the conflict between capital and labor. Govern- ments and legislatures are helpless to restore harmony. The various nations must do their work, and I must do mine. Their work is local and particular, such as the maintenance of order, and the enforcement of ameliorative laws. But my work as the head of Christendom must be universal and on a different plane.
"The world must be re-Christianized. The moral condition of the workingman and his employer must be improved. Each must look at the other through Christian eyes. That is
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the only way. How vain are the efforts of nations which seek to bring contentment to man and master by legislation, forgetting that the Christian religion alone can draw men together in love and peace. As the wealth of the world increases, the gulf between the laborer and his employer will widen and deepen unless it be bridged over by Christian charity and the mutual forbearance which is inspired by Chris- tian morals. But if the foes of Jesus Christ and His Church continue to attack and revile the holy religion which inspires and teaches sound morals and has civilized the world, these social disorders, which are but signs on the horizon to-day, will overwhelm and destroy them.
"The continued existence of human slavery in pagan lands is another source of sorrow to me. As a means of abolishing slavery I have established missionary colleges and am sending devoted missionaries into Africa and wherever men are held in bondage. The true way to free them is to educate and Christianize them. An enlightened man cannot be enslaved. For that reason I shall devote the energies of the
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church to spreading knowledge among the poor savages. Humanity must aid me to teach these unfortunates and save them from slavery. We must work without ceasing until there is not a slave anywhere on earth."
His Holiness spoke with visible emotion about his desire for the disarmament of Europe.
"The existence of these vast armies is a source of displeasure and sorrow to the Holy See," he said. " The military life, which has been invested with a certain glamor, is injur- ing hundreds of thousands of young men. That fact must be apparent to every statesman who seriously considers the question. It sur- rounds young men with violent and immoral influences, it turns their thoughts from spirit- ual things, and tends to harden and degrade them. These armies are not only full of peril to the souls of men, but they drain the world of its wealth. So long as Europe is filled with soldiery, so long will all the labor represented by millions of men in arms be withdrawn from the soil, and the poor will be overburdened with taxes to support the system. The armies of Europe are impoverishing Europe.
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"These great military establishments have another deplorable effect. They set one people against another and intensify national jealous- ies. The inevitable result is the growth of a spirit of anger and vengefulness. I long to see a return of peace and charity among the nations. Mighty armies confronting each other on every frontier are not consistent with the teachings of Jesus Christ."
I reminded His Holiness that the principle of arbitration rather than war had become a part of the national policy of the United States.
"Yes," said the Pope, "that is a true and wise principle, but most of the men who con- trol the affairs of Europe are not governed by a desire for truth. See how they exalt godless- ness ! Look at the .men whose names are selected here in Italy for honor after death ! — men who died opposing and reviling Christian- ity— men like Mazzini."
That was the end of the first newspaper interview with the Pope. I knelt beside Mon- signor Rooker and received the Apostolic bene- diction. Then His Holiness arose.
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" I hope that you will omit the petty per- sonal details which are so offensive in news- paper articles," he said. " They are trivialities and beneath the dignity of the press."
As we moved out of the room the Pope called me back to him, and placing his frail hands upon my head, his eyes brimming with emotion, he said in a voice of great tenderness : —
" Son, you are young and you may be useful to the world. May the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit go with you. Farewell ! "
And as we retired we looked back at the slender white figure standing alone in the shad- owy room — and I knew that I had been face to face with the most exalted personality of modern history. Of all the famous men I have met in my world-wanderings since that day, — statesmen, monarchs, philosophers, phil- anthropists, — I have seen no other man who seemed to have such a universal point of view.
Once more I saw the Pope, borne aloft on the shoulders of the Swiss Guard into the
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Sistine Chapel in a scene of supreme splendor — the triple crown upon his head, jewels flash- ing on his bosom, the Sistine choir chanting Palestrina's deathless music, and clouds of in- cense floating over the heads of a procession headed by the Knights of Malta, and followed by a long train of cardinals, archbishops, bish- ops, and monsignori.
The sunlight fell upon lines of shining steel, nodding plumes, golden chains, shimmering robes of silk, and all the glittering symbolry of pontifical power and glory.
And gathered within the walls immortalized by Raphael and Michael Angelo, before the eyes of the assembled aristocracy of Rome, was a horde of American savages in paint, feathers, and blankets, carrying tomahawks and knives. At the entrance of the chapel stood Buffalo Bill, Buck Taylor, and Broncho Bill, while a troop of cowboys, splashed with mud, and picturesque beyond description, lined the human aisle beyond.
When the Pope appeared, swaying in his resplendent seat, high above the assembled host, the cowboys bowed their heads, the Indians
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knelt down, and Rocky Bear, the surly old chief, made the sign of the cross.
The Pontiff leaned yearningly toward the rude groups and blessed them again and again.
A few days afterward I was permitted to walk in the ancient garden of the Vatican. It was a day of surpassing loveliness. Every wandering breath of air came laden with the perfumes of distant fields of flowers. Here Pius IX. used to ride on his white mule among the venerable groves, interspersed with foun- tains and statues; and here the poets of an elder time declaimed in the open air to the assembled gallants of the Papal courts.
I saw the herd of shaggy goats from Africa which were driven every day to the door of the Pope's apartments and freshly milked. I ate grapes in the vineyard that furnished wine for the Pope's table. I saw the Pope's summer retreat, and the little tea pavilion on the road- side, with the scarlet velvet chair, and the caged parrots screaming the Pope's name.
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I saw the snow-white deer, and the snow- white peacock — emblem of immortality.
Then my guide suddenly knelt in the road and crossed himself; and in the shadow of a mighty tree I saw a bent white figure, and a hand faintly waving the sign of the cross.
CHAPTER II
The Storming of Ping Yang
HEAR the story of the storming of Ping Yang by the Japanese army, in the heart of Corea — the hermit nation — and hear it from one who wrote by lantern light on the outmost ramparts to es- cape the terrific sounds of victory that roared between the shattered walls of the old city, while the reek of a thousand half-buried Chi- nese corpses rose from the darkened field over which the conquering soldiery still marched northward in pursuit of Corea's oppressors.
Lying on the parched grass at night, with my cracked lantern tied to an ancient arrow stuck in the ground, the breeze fluttering the clumsy sheets of native paper on which I set down the details of this historic struggle, I could hear the jolly whistling of my blanket- comrade, Frederic Villiers, the famous war artist, as he worked on his pictures in a wrecked pagoda two hundred feet away.
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The armies of Asiatic barbarism and Asiatic civilization met on this ground to fight the first great battle of the war that ended in the fall of Wei-Hai-Wei and Port Arthur; and here Japan emancipated the helpless Corean nation from the centuried despotism of China.
The Chinese fired on the Red Cross, vio- lated hospitals, beheaded sick soldiers, tortured prisoners to death, and used the white flag of peace to cover treachery, while the Japan- ese tenderly nursed Chinese captives and risked their lives to rescue the enemy's wounded. Japan covered herself with glory. I can bear witness to scenes of kindness and forbearance that shamed the military history of Europe. A nation that does not acknowl- edge Christianity planted the scarlet cross of Christ on the battlefield, and the thunder of the fight was scarcely over before the work of charity began among friends and foes alike.
The hoary city of Ping Yang, once the capital of the hermit kingdom, sprawls down to the edge of the Tai-Tong River, which is half a mile wide and without bridges. This
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is the eastern boundary. Its crooked streets ascend gradually to the west and north, ending in steep precipices, crested with castellated stone walls overlooking the valley. Beyond are several small, timbered hills. Southward is a level plain, stretching westward from the river for three-quarters of a mile to a range of hills. The muddy river runs north and south. From the fortified heights can be seen a tumult of mountain tops in every direction. A thousand years ago Ping Yang was the strongest city in Asia. Its walls are thick and its gates massive and well placed on the plain.
In forty-two days the Chinese army built more than thirty earthworks outside the walls of Ping Yang. There were miles of new forti- fications. Many of the walls were fifteen feet high, and it is hard to understand how troops with energy enough to work such a miracle of construction could be driven from their vast fortress by an attacking force of only ten thousand men.
To the south of the city the Chinese erected twenty huge fortifications, loopholed and
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moated. They were garrisoned by six thou- sand bayonets and artillery, reenforced by a body of picked Manchurian cavalry, armed with swords and lances fifteen feet long. On the other side of the river they built three strong earthworks.
The western and northern sides of Ping Yang were defended by a continuous chain of new works, some on the northwest angle being on the summits of hills. One fort was three hundred feet about the level plain. In this angle of the city, on the edge of a preci- pice, were massed three thousand five hundred Chinese infantry and cavalry from ancient Moukden, with a small force of artillery. Still farther to the west were forts on three hill- tops armed with Krupp and Catling guns.
Everywhere on the broad walls were crimson and yellow banners — hundreds and hundreds of them. Each of the six Chinese generals displayed an immense flag, its size indicating his rank. The flag of General Yeh, the com- mander-in-chief, measured thirty feet and bore a single character representing his name. That flag now belongs to the Emperor of
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Japan. When the Japanese vanguard reached Whang-ju, its commander mounted a hill five miles from Ping Yang and through his tele- scope he could see a tossing line of banners for miles along the line of fortifications. The Chinese officers strutted up and down the walls, preceded by their individual flags, while drums beat and trumpets sounded defiance.
As the Japanese army moved forward to the rescue, the Chinese generals made merry with the dancing girls of Ping Yang, renowned throughout Asia for their grace and beauty. All was pomp by day and revelry by night. The Chinese soldiers broke into the houses of timid Coreans, and treated their wives and daughters shamefully. Drunkenness and debauchery ran riot, and while the generals caroused with the dancing girls, the whole city was looted. Hell seemed to be let loose. The frightened inhabit- ants fled to the fields and forests — men, women, and children — and remained there until the Jap- anese army entered the city, when they crept back, many of them dying from starvation and exposure.
This was the situation when General Oshima
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led a brigade of about four thousand Japanese infantry, cavalry, and artillery in sight of the three forts on the eastern shore of the Tai- Tong River. The Corean vassals were bowing their necks to the Chinese yoke for the last time. Ping Yang was to be attacked by four Japanese columns, marching from the coast by different routes. Oshima's force was to make a demonstration until the three other Japanese forces, marching in from the coast by different directions, had stolen into their positions around Ping Yang.
The Chinese commanders, in huge specta- cles, heroes of many a classical debate, and surrounded by the painted, embroidered, and carved monsters of mythological war, but wholly ignorant of modern military science, awaited the oncoming of the trim little, up-to- date soldiers of Japan, with all the scorn of learned foolishness. The Chinese garrison, wearing boastful inscriptions on their breasts and backs, and clad in bright-colored apron- trousers and wide-sleeved fantastic jackets, were armed with American rifles, which they had recently learned how to use.
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Gray old China, profoundly calm in the knowledge of blue and white porcelain, im- mersed in the scholastic beauty of the ancient odes, — lazy, luxurious, dreamy China — had bought a few thousand American rifles and German cannons.
Yet you may arm a fortress with the mighti- est enginery of death that military science can evolve; you may equip men with the most cunningly perfect weapons and flawless am- munition ; but unless the trained brain, and eye and body are behind the mechanical means of destruction, unless every unit in the army is controlled by the law of the whole, unless the flag represents to the soldier something more then mere authority, and war something nobler than the mere killing of men for pay — unless these elements are present, rifles, cannon, and repeating arms are in vain.
A few gentle, foolish Coreans skulked about the streets of Ping Yang in their white cotton garments and monstrous hats, and watched the swaggering Manchurian braves with a dim idea that the dapper, disciplined Japanese battalions, clad in close-buttoned
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European uniforms, were marching to their doom.
The broad Tai-Tong River lay between Gen- eral Oshima and the city. Two thousand Chinese soldiers were in the three fortifications in front of his brigade, and just beyond was an insecure bridge, resting on boats, hurriedly built by the Chinese. To reach this bridge and cross the river to the east gate of Ping Yang, it was necessary to take the three fortifications.
For two days Oshima attacked the triple fortress. Then, by a clever movement, his bayonets carried the southern breastworks.
The Chinese had advanced out of their works just before dark, sending a cow and a band of trumpeters ahead — a Mongolian skir- mishing device. There was absolute silence in the Japanese ranks until the enemy was within a distance of three hundred feet. Then the Chinese column was swept by vol- ley after volley, and took to its heels, followed by Oshima's cavalry, which was prevented from doing effective work by the dense brush.
That night General Oshima received word
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from General Tatsumi, who had marched an- other Japanese brigade by a circuitous route to a position on the north of Ping Yang. Another strong Japanese force, under the command of Colonel Sato, had arrived from Gensan, and had taken up a position on the northwest of the city, within easy reach of General Tatsumi. General Nozu, the senior Japanese commander, had stealthily marched in from the southwest, and his brigade lay in a valley between two small hills on which his artillery was placed. Ping Yang was surrounded.
Japanese couriers stole from camp to camp in the darkness, and the Japanese commanders agreed that the original plan of attack should be followed. Meanwhile, the Chinese drums throbbed riotously in the city, and the danc- ing girls beguiled the Chinese generals.
As the night wore on, the tired Japanese troops moved silently on all sides toward the city. The moon was shining brightly, and a light breeze came from the northeast. The Japanese ranks were as perfect as though the army were on parade. It is a peculiarity of
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the Chinese army that its pickets and out- posts keep close to the fortifications, so that the garrison of Ping Yang had no warning of the advancing enemy until at three o'clock in the morning the skirmish lines of the four Japanese columns opened fire.
General Tatsumi's infantry lay under a round fort on the crest of a steep bluff — the very spot where Konishi, the Japanese conqueror, broke into Ping Yang with his army three centuries before. A battalion of Japanese bayonets dashed up the steep heights, while another detachment of infantry charged around the base of the hill into a wooded valley, filled with graves, and, in the midst of them, the gor- geous tomb of Ki Cha, the founder of Corea.
The Chinese host swarmed down the heights to meet their foe, fighting desperately with Winchester rifles. There were officers in front and officers behind., waving their swords, and urging on the Manchurian braves. From the walls above a storm of lead cut the leaves and branches from the trees, but the Japan- ese kept well under cover, and drove the Chinese up the hill foot by foot.
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Just at daybreak two companies of Japanese infantry made a bayonet charge straight up the hill, in the teeth of the concentrated fire of five hundred repeating rifles. The gallant little men broke into cheers as they emerged from the trees and climbed the precipice, while the Chinese infantry retreated in confusion to the round fort, many of them throwing their rifles away.
As the glittering line of bayonets swept up to' the rough walls and the shouts of the ad- vancing soldiers rang out over the ramparts, the Chinese garrison abandoned the fort and fled behind the walls of an inner fortification. A few leaped over the precipice, and their mangled bodies rolled down into a stream. Captain Koqua, who led the bayonet charge, fell as he advanced to attack the second forL At eight o'clock the garrison in the second fort retreated to the inmost fortification, and the Japanese poured in through a gate, bayoneting the fugitives as they ran. The Manchurians fought magnificently as individuals. Nothing could be finer than the courage with which they faced the terrible volleys of the Japanese in-
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fantry, but the moment a charge was made they ran like frightened animals, tearing the uniforms from their bodies and dropping their weapons.
Now the artillery in the forts on the hills all around the city began to roar. General Nozu's batteries on the western eminence played upon the Chinese forts to the north, which were being attacked on the other side by Colonel Sato. His cannon also kept the twenty forts on the south of the city in a state of panic and prevented them from con- centrating their fire against Oshima's lines. Nozu's infantry and cavalry scoured the valley under the western walls of the city, and by a deadly cross fire kept the Chinese garrison in the northwest angle of Ping Yang from escaping the volleys of Tatsumi's troops, who had already taken two lines of fortifications.
A terrific battle was in progress on the other side of the river, where Oshima's troops charged the three forts again and again under a terrible artillery fire, while his howitzer bat- teries tore gaps in the Chinese ranks. The Japanese soldiers were horrified by the sight
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of the Chinese hacking off the heads of pris- oners in the distance, and they fought furiously, charging up to the very muzzles of the enemy's cannon. One of Oshima's battalions charged a fort on the bank of the river and carried the outer walls. Here the troops fought for hours almost hand to hand, but the Chinese held the walls bravely, while a body of their sharp- shooters, lying behind the bushes at the edge of the river, kept up a deadly enfilading fire against the left flank of the Japanese. All the ground on this side of the fortification lay over subterranean powder mines, but the Chinese in their excitement forgot to explode them.
The great mass of forts on the southern side of Ping Yang rained shot and shell across the river, and the drifting cannon smoke was red- dened with the flames of Catling volleys and infantry fire. The death cries of men and horses swelled the giant chorus of battle, but the yells of the infuriated Japanese soldiers could be heard above it all as they closed in upon the forts and attempted to scale the walls.
The city was half hidden in battle smoke, and the crimson and yellow banners of the Chinese
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were riddled with bullets. Blood, blood every- where— on the walls, in the rippling river, on the green hillsides, in the flowering valleys. Blood trickling over gravestones, blood dashed against the walls of the ancient temples, blood on the rocks, blood on the roof-tops — every- where the cold gleam of steel in the swirling cannon mist and sheeted flame ; and away off in the treetops or cowering in the grain-fields the terrified Coreans, listening to the sounds of the mighty struggle that was to make them free or confirm their slavery.
An hour after the battle opened in the dark- ness, two companies of Oshima's infantry crossed the Tai-Tong River in small Corean boats below the twenty southern forts, and boldly advanced upon the bewildering labyrinth of walls. Be- tween the attacking companies and the forts was a wide moat filled with water and mined with torpedoes. A thousand Chinese bayonets advanced to meet the Japanese, but were driven back across the moat, inside of the fort.
The sky darkened and rain fell. To the amazement of the Japanese soldiers, the Chi- nese troops planted huge oiled-paper umbrellas
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on the walls of their forts to keep them dry while they fought. In every direction Chinese umbrellas could be seen, glistening like turtles on the earthworks.
Now came the most magnificent spectacle of the battle. The garrison in the city, unable to withstand the withering fire of the Japanese, were attempting to feel their way out. A body of two hundred and seventy Manchurian cav- alry, mounted on snow-white horses, moved from the northwest angle of Ping Yang, gal- loped along a road skirting the city's western wall, and on reaching the southern end of the road, suddenly wheeled and charged down the valley, where Nozu's troops were stretched across from hill to hill between his batteries.
On went the splendid troops of warriors, and the earth shook as they thundered into the val- ley, with their long black lances set and pen- nons dancing from the shining spear-points. A few were armed with rifles and bayonets. On, over the stream and through the rice-fields, a heaving mass of blue and scarlet, rising and falling on billows of white horses and bristling with steel.
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Not a man stirred in the Japanese line, as the Manchurians swept down on the centre, pre- pared to cut their way through and escape. When the cavalry were within two hundred feet, the earth seemed to open and vomit smoke and flame, as the united Japanese infantry and artil- lery opened fire upon the doomed horsemen. Horses and riders went down together, and were hurled in bloody heaps. Forty of the Manchurians escaped through the line, but were cut in pieces by a separate company of Japanese cavalry in the rear.
Three hundred more rode out from the artil- lery-swept heights — three hundred brilliantly clad warriors, also on white horses. Halting for a moment, and setting their long lances, they charged down the slope. The dense smoke in the valley prevented them from learning the fate of their comrades who preceded them. As they galloped forward, the Chinese artillerymen cheered them. Down into the gray mist of death they went, and when they reached the middle of the valley, the Japanese line fell upon them. Not a man escaped. A third charge of a hundred horsemen resulted in utter annihilation.
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The scene was horrible beyond words to tell, and the streams on either side of the valley road were red with Chinese blood. After the battle, there were counted in a space of two hundred yards the bodies of two hundred and seventy horses and two hundred and sixty men.
The rain continued to fall in torrents, and the Chinese soldiers on the walls, huddling under their umbrellas, blazed away blindly. All this time the storming party in the two captured fortifications at the northwest angle of the city was pressing the troops in the inner forts, send- ing volley upon volley over the walls. This was the key of the situation. The Japanese com- manders could see the great flags of the Chinese generals just beyond.
At four o'clock in the afternoon the Chinese hoisted a white flag on the inner fort, and a party of Japanese officers descended from the cap- tured positions to parley at the gate. The Chi- nese officers gravely announced that it was impossible to surrender in the rain, as the wet weather prevented them from making the proper arrangements for a capitulation. If the Japanese would stop fighting until the next
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day, and the weather cleared, the city would be surrendered.
The watchful Japanese officers observed Chi- nese troops stealing forward along the walls under cover of the flag of truce. They answered that an army that could fight in the rain could also surrender in the rain. They insisted that the hoisting of the white flag over the enemy's works was an act of surrender and demanded that the gate should be thrown open so that the Japanese troops might enter without further bloodshed. Again the bedizened Chinese offi- cers pleaded for delay. It was raining very hard, and the mud was very deep. It would be a terrible thing to move the garrison out of shelter; but to-morrow they would cheerfully go away.
It was evident that the crafty Chinese were merely trying to gain time. The Japanese re- newed the assault and fought long into the night. Every now and then flights of Corean arrows came whizzing through the darkness. The Chinese were forcing the childish native soldiers into the fight, slashing them over the shoulders with whips. Hour after hour the
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hungry and exhausted soldiers struggled on the slippery and bloody hill. Those who were killed fell headlong over the ramparts into the valley. The rain beat in the faces of the fight- ers and drenched their bodies as they pressed on in the gloom, their path lit only by the blaze of the rifle volleys. The fighting had ceased on all other sides of the city. The whole Chinese garrison, with the exception of the Moukden troops defending the northwest angle had fled in the darkness between the forces of Colonel Salo and General Nozu.
As the Chinese retreated through the valley they cut the heads and hands from the Japanese dead. They broke into the Japanese hospital quarters, butchered and beheaded the wounded men, and swept to the north with their dancing girls and bloody trophies.
The Japanese fighting on the heights above caught a glimpse of the flying troops among the trees in the valley below and sent a volley into their flank.
After twenty -two hours of continuous fighting General Tatsumi's infantry carried the inner fortifications of the northwest angle by sheer
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dash. At one o'clock in the morning they scaled the walls. The Chinese garrison howled and ran about like hunted wolves. They jumped over the parapets and crawled under the bushes. As they ran they threw away their arms and uniforms.
Meanwhile General Oshima's brigade had gained the rude bridge on boats and had crossed the river. A bullet wounded him in the side, killed the interpreter behind him, and passed through a regimental flag.
Thirty Japanese war correspondents, armed with enormous swords, entered Ping Yang at the head of the army, and fought until they were exhausted. The general was compelled to issue an order prohibiting newspaper men from fighting.
When day dawned Ping Yang was in the hands of the Japanese army. The scene around the city was ghastly. For miles the ground was littered with dead men and horses. Thousands of gay Chinese uniforms were scat- tered on the field. At the first sign of defeat the officers and men had stripped themselves of their outer clothing in order to claim immunity
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as merchants. Nine hundred prisoners were taken, and not a man was in uniform.
All along the ramparts of the city the ground was covered with empty cartridge shells. In some places they lay an inch deep. Thousands of birds of prey were feeding on the dead lying among broken lances, overturned cannons, heaps of camp wreck, torn banners, swords, and dead horses.
That victory ended the power of China in Corea.
After gathering the story of the battle, I travelled in a junk down the Tai-Tong River and thence along the Corean coast in a steamer to Chemulpo. From that city a messenger took my despatch over the sea to Japan, and from there it was sent to San Francisco and tele- graphed across the continent to New York.
When I arrived in the dirty little Corean sea- port, weary and sickened by the bloody field of Ping Yang, a messenger handed me a cable- gram from Ohio. It contained two words — "Boy — well." It was the announcement of the birth of my first child. Thirteen tissue paper tags, bearing the seals of thirteen differ-
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ent headquarters of the Japanese army, showed that the news had been carried from battlefield to battlefield to reach me. The news of a new life was brought to me from the other side of the world, just as I sent word of a thousand freshly slain.
That night, on my way back to Ping Yang, I found the main Japanese fleet at the mouth of the Tai-Tong River. Admiral Ito had defeated the Chinese fleet, and had just fallen back on the Corean coast for repairs and ammu- nition. It was a great opportunity for a war correspondent. No other newspaper man had reached the victorious fleet, and fortune had given to me the first story of the most important naval fight of modern times — the battle of the Yalu.
When I boarded the flagship Haskidate, Ad- miral Ito was asleep, but he dressed himself and sent for his fleet captains in order to help me out with the details of the conflict.
As the Japanese admiral sat at his table, sur- rounded by his officers, with the rude charts of the battle spread out before him, he looked like a sea-commander — tall, eagle-eyed, square-
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jawed, with a sabre scar furrowed across his broad forehead ; a close-mouthed man whose coat was always buttoned to his chin. Bending over the maps and smoothing out the paper with his sinewy, big-knuckled hands, the lamp- light gleaming against his powerful face, he was a man not easily forgotten.
And when the tale of that thrilling struggle on the Yellow Sea was over, the admiral turned to me smilingly.
" It is a big piece of news for you," he said.
"Yes," I answered, "but I have received a still greater piece of news."
Then I drew from my pocket the cablegram announcing the birth of my boy, and read it.
" Good ! " cried the admiral. " We will cele- brate the event. Steward, bring champagne ! "
Standing in a circle, the admiral and his captains clinked their glasses together and drank the health of my little son.
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CHAPTER III
Interview with the King of Corea
ONE night as I slept in my field-dress on the floor of a captured Ping Yang palace, I was awakened by the sound of angry voices, and saw the treacherous native governor of the province, lying bound in his splendid silken robes, like a great scarlet butterfly, with a stern little Japanese colonel standing over him, and commanding his sol- diers to strip the white jade pigeon — a sacred sign of authority — from the trembling pris- oner's official hat.
"I could do nothing but submit," whined the governor. "The Chinese army had pos- session before your army came."
"You are a coward and a traitor," growled the colonel, spurning the prisoner with his foot.
So, almost from the time of Christ, the Corean nation had crouched in fear between
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Japan and China, prostrating itself alternately before the rival thrones.
A traveller in Corea is bewildered by the effects of three thousand years of hermit life upon this strange people. They are not sav- ages. Thirty centuries of civilization are set down in their literature. Nowhere else in the world have I seen such magnificent specimens of physical manhood. The ordinary European is a pygmy among the tall, straight, powerful Coreans. An indescribable gravity and dig- nity of manner lends itself to the impressive grace and strength and the noble features of this ancient race. As the men become old they grow long beards, which add to their naturally majestic bearing.
Yet the Coreans are the emptiest-headed, most childlike, and most generally foolish peo- ple among civilized nations. They are the grown-up children of Asia. Their ignorance is not like the ignorance of Central Africa. Hundreds of years ago, they inspired Japan with the love of art, and their literature is as old as Egypt. They are gentle and meditative. Throughout the Corean peninsula, stately quo-
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tations from the noblest Chinese odes are painted on the public buildings, in the quaint summer pagodas, and on the walls of dwelling houses. Their very battle flags are inscribed with philosophic sayings.
But the Coreans are drugged with abstract scholasticism and demonology. They are cred- ulous almost beyond belief. A white-bearded, spectacled Solomon, who can recite whole poems from the Chinese classics, will tell you gravely that there are not more wells in Ping Yang, because the city is an island and, if too many holes were cut in the bottom, it might sink. There is a spirit for the hill, another one for the valley, another for the rice-field, another for the woods, another for the river, another for the house, and so on, endlessly. Cut off from active intercourse with other nations for thou- sands of years, the Coreans represent the most remote ages of mystic Oriental civilization.
The mountainous, many-templed peninsula has been swept by many wars. More than a century before the Christian era began, the native king defeated a Chinese army on the banks of the Tai-Tong River. Nearly seven
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hundred years afterward, the Emperor of China sent three hundred thousand soldiers to conquer Corea and failed. His successor raised a force of a million warriors, armed principally with trumpets, banners, and gongs, and was again baffled. More than two hundred thou- sand of the yellow host died on the soil of Corea. And yet, a generation later, China sent another army to subdue the hermit nation. Corea massed a hundred and fifty thousand lancemen, swordsmen, and archers. A great battle was fought near Ping Yang, and after twenty thousand of his men had been slain, the Corean general surrendered and the Chinese divided among themselves fifty thousand horses and ten thousand coats of mail.
War after war reddened the mountains and valleys, and still a native dynasty remained on the hermit throne of Corea, the same profound desire for isolation from the rest of the world pervaded the people.
Three centuries ago Japan invaded the little kingdom. The King of Corea appealed to China for help. The Japanese defeated the united Chinese and Corean armies, and, after one
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The King of Corea
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battle cut off the ears and noses of thirty-seven hundred dead enemies, packed them in casks, and sent them to Japan to make the famous ear- mound of Kioto. Three hundred thousand houses were burned when the conquering army put the city of Keku-shiu to the torch.
In spite of her centuries of suffering, in spite of the invasions and rebellions, Corea remained a recluse among the nations. Her king cheer- fully consented to be the vassal of China or Japan, or both at the same time. All he asked was to be let alone with his gentle, dreamy peo- ple and his soft-eyed dancing girls.
This was the attitude of the King of Corea when I talked with him at Seoul. He was grate- ful to the Japanese for emancipating him from the Chinese, but he hinted that some nation — the United States, for instance — might find it convenient to emancipate him from the emanci- pators. He longed for a return to the ancient national quiet — philosophy, poetry, and solitude.
Not having eaten of the lotus flower, I felt criminally modern in this venerable country. The solemn old men, with their big spectacles, flowing beards, umbrella-like hats, yard-long
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pipes, and calm faces, pacing majestically along the narrow streets or on the winding mountain paths, seemed to rebuke the news-hunting fever in my veins. What was an American news- paper— born every morning only to die at night — to that mild, contented people, whose civilization had survived the shocks of three thousand years ? What could the telegraph, telephone, steam engine, or printing press add to their happiness ?
The native crew of the junk that carried me down the Tai-Tong River from Ping Yang mu- tinied. I called the leader to me and let him look through my powerful field-glasses. Then I allowed him to look through the wrong end of the glasses. After that I unscrewed one of the lenses and, concentrating the rays of the sun, burnt a hole in the wooden deck.
That settled it; the crew surrendered and went to work. But not one of them dared to touch even my clothes, lest I might bewitch him.
At Chemulpo I saw a gigantic Corean porter, who could lift twelve hundred pounds on his shoulders, burst into tears when my eighteen- year-old Japanese interpreter slapped his face.
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He was strong enough to have killed the inter- preter with a single blow ; but it never seemed to occur to him to strike back.
When I reached Seoul, the picturesque capi- tal of Corea, having slept in my riding boots all night on the deck of a little British steam launch beside Dr. Sill, the American minister, I found that the King — alarmed by the presence of the victorious Japanese army on his soil — had re- fused to receive any more visitors, withdrawing himself even from direct communication with the foreign ministers.
An interview with the King would give a quaint variety to the endless descriptions of fighting. The American public must be allowed to see the inmost throne of the royal palace ; American journalism must invade the presence of the hermit monarch — to touch whose person was an offence punishable by death — see his face, question him, and weave his sorrows into some up-to-date political moral. The artificial majesty of kings, after all, counts for little before the levelling processes of the modern newspaper power. It may be intrusive, it may be irrever- ent, it may be destructive of sentiment ; but it
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gradually breaks down the walls of tradition and prejudice that divide the human race. It intro- duces the king to the peasant. It makes the East known to the West in an understandable dialect. It is the subtlest, swiftest element in the chemistry of modern civilization.
There was one foreigner alone who could reach the King at that time — the King's doctor. That man was Dr. Horace N. Allen, then Sec- retary of the American Legation, and now American Minister to Corea. A sovereign who lives in daily dread of poison is bound to be on intimate and friendly terms with his physician. Through Dr. Allen's intercession I secured his Majesty's consent to an interview.
But how was I to secure the conventional swallow-tail costume in which I must appear in the palace ? My rough corduroy riding dress, spurred boots, flannel shirt, and slouch hat were all I had. The situation was tragic. The American Legation sat in council on the subject and solved the problem. The American Minis- ter lent me a tall hat, white shirt and collar. A naval lieutenant lent me a pair of black trousers, and an officer of marines contributed a swallow-
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tailed coat with a vest to match. I borrowed the shoes of the Minister's son. Thus arrayed, with the Minister's generously large hat slipping down on my ears, I went with Dr. Allen to see his Majesty, Li Hsi, ruler of the Land of Morn- ing Calm, in behalf of the shrieking, news- paper-worshipping American multitude.
We were carried in curtained sedan chairs through the swarming, crooked streets of old Seoul to one of the great gates of the palace. There we alighted, and followed a solemn ckusa, clad in a blue silk robe adorned with white stocks, who trudged on before us into the royal grounds in big, ceremonial, black cloth boots.
The King's palace consists of four or five hundred rambling houses set within giant stone walls. Acres and acres of dull tiled roofs rise above tawdry dwellings daubed with red, blue, yellow, and white, with here and there fantastic gargoyles of carved wood peer- ing out from under quaint Asiatic eaves.
There was an air of desolation over it all. The hall and lotus pond, where the King lan- guished among his dark-eyed dancing girls,
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were deserted, and spiders were spinning their webs across the entrance. Water purled wan- tonly from a broken fountain. A shattered door, gilded and tinted, lay at the side of an empty shrine. Now and then a lazy official in an enormous hat and silken robe shambled out of a doorway, and looked at us. The sleepy, dilapidated sentries presented arms — many of them guns without locks — as we passed through the age-worn streets of the royal demesne. Once we caught a glimpse of a woman's face, half veiled, at a win- dow— probably one of the King's beautiful slaves.
Three thousand people usually live in the palace grounds, but that day it was like a deserted town but for the slouching, uneasy guards. Treachery lurked in every shadow ; murder crouched in every street. Only a few months later the Queen — she who poisoned so many of her rivals — was assassinated in these grounds and burned to ashes.
We walked for about a quarter of a mile among the old buildings, and then we came to an open pavilion surrounded by latticed
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screens, where Hong Woo Kwan, the moon- faced interpreter of the American Legation, clad in a richly embroidered court dress, met us, and seated us at a small table. A moment later a smug, smiling Corean rustled in, shook hands with himself, and bowed to us. He was the King's cook, a man not to be overlooked in a monarchy whose destinies are so often controlled by poison. Champagne and cigar- ettes were set before us. Here we sat until the King sent word that he was ready, and the guard was turned out to salute us.
The way led through a small wooden gate guarded by seven or eight awkward soldiers, three of whom were without arms. A few steps along a crooked lane, lined with gor- geously painted little houses, brought us to another small gate, also closely guarded, and, on passing through it, we found ourselves in a curious paved courtyard, on the opposite side of which was a frontless room, raised above the ground like a stage in a theatre, with wooden steps at the side leading up to it. As we crossed the yard and ascended the steps, we could see the King surrounded by
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his palace officials — remarkably like a group- ing in some drama.
In another moment I was face to face with the unhappy sovereign of Corea. He stood behind a table, in front of a gaudily uphol- stered European chair, with his small, nervous hands crossed lightly over his ceinture, — a slender, shy man, with an oval face, thin, silky mustache and chin beard, a kind, vo- luptuous mouth, and soft, dark eyes. He had the eyes of a beautiful girl. When he smiled he hung his head on one side, half closed his eyes, looked straight at us, and opened them slowly with the expression of a bashful woman. The King did not extend his hand. To touch him intentionally is death ; to touch him by accident means that the offender must wear a red cord around his wrist for the rest of his life. It was once a capital crime to look at him in the streets. The King's person is divine. When he goes abroad in his city all doors must be shut and the owner of each house is compelled to kneel before his door with a broom and dustpan in his hand as emblems of humility. All the
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windows must be sealed lest some one should look down upon the monarch. So sacred is the person of the King, that when he moves outside of his palace two sedan chairs, exactly alike in appearance, are carried by the guards, and no one but the highest ministers knows in which chair the King sits.
Yet I could see no good reason why an American newspaper correspondent should not be quite comfortable in the presence of this exalted being. He was for the moment simply "a big piece of news."
The King was clad in a crimson silk robe with wide sleeves, yoked at the shoulders with cloth of gold, and caught at the waist by a gold-buckled, loose, black belt. A haze of black gauze covered the royal mantle, and a sparkling jewel held it across the breast. He wore on his small, shapely head a strange structure of stiffened black net, not unlike the semi-transparent framework of an Ameri- can woman's bonnet. It rose in the form of an exaggerated Phrygian cap, and was pro- vided with grotesque, black wings standing upright. The monarch's legs were enveloped
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in huge, baggy trousers of white silk, and his swathed ankles bulged out above embroidered Corean shoes. On either side stood two rat- eyed, watchful eunuchs in pale blue robes, their dark faces scowling and their hands hidden in the folds of huge sleeves.
To the right of the King the crown prince leaned against a table, a half-witted, open- mouthed youth, attired like his father, save that his mantle was purple. General Ye", the commander-in-chief of the army, stood on the left of the crown prince, velvet-eyed, green- clad, a mighty jewelled sword gleaming at his side.
The courtiers were spread out on the stage in a half circle like a many-colored fan. The ceiling of carved rafters overhead was a confused whirl of colors. The walls were latticed and panelled with translucent native paper.
Three slow bows and a pause. The twenty- eighth king of Corea was about to undergo the ordeal of a newspaper interview, an expe- rience undreamed of by his predecessors. The interpreter folded his hands across the embroid-
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ered storks on his bosom, bent his head rever- ently, and advanced.
" I am glad to receive a representative of the American press," whispered the King in the ear of the bowed interpreter, who whispered the words to me without daring to move his head. " It is my wish and the wish of my people that Corea shall be absolutely free and independent. I appeal now and I shall continue to appeal to the civilized nations of the world to assist in preserving the integrity of my kingdom. I especially rely upon the United States. The American government was the first to make a treaty with Corea, and that treaty contains a promise of help in time of danger. I look to the United States for a fulfilment of that promise. My faith in your country is unshaken. When other nations threaten me, I turn to America."
" But how can the United States help you now ? " I asked.
The King looked embarrassed, and his whispering grew fainter than ever. It was plain that he felt constrained in the presence of his courtiers. He hesitated, looked about him nervously, then said : —
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" If a few American soldiers were sent to the palace to protect my person, it would change the situation."
I had heard many stories concerning the pressure put upon the King by the Japanese — that he was continually under duress ; that a sword was drawn upon him before he signed the treaty making Corea a military ally of Japan ; that he was kept in a constant state of terror by a reduction of the palace guard to a handful of untrained, half -armed louts; and that he was unable to sleep at night for fear of sudden attempts upon his life. But this was the first time that the King had publicly avowed that he was practically a prisoner in his own capital. The rest of the interview related to matters that were interesting at that time but are hardly worth setting down here.
While the King was speaking, I could see a pair of glittering black eyes peering through an opening in the screen. Behind the screen stood the famous Queen whose ashes were soon to be scattered over her own garden. It was this extraordinary woman, who, when dis- guised and flying for safety in 1884, unveiled her
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bosom to deceive her foes, crying, " See ! would the Queen of Corea do that? Would she not die first ? " All through the interview the Queen watched us from her place of conceal- ment. She never allowed her royal husband out of her sight in those days of peril, fearing that the dread Tai Won Kung — the former regent — intended to destroy the King and put his grandson, General Ye, on the throne.
As I retired from the presence of the King, General Ye came forward leaning on the shoulders of his jewelled attendants — a stal- wart, bright-looking young man with the bear- ing of a European gentleman.
The interpreter gravely informed me that the general desired me to know that he had arrived, which I knew by the fact that he was standing within ten inches of me. He said that the general hoped that my health was very good. Then he remarked that the gen- eral wished to inform me that he was going, which I suspected from the circumstance that the general had already turned his back upon me and was walking away.
Then to the Tai Won Kung, the mightiest
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figure in modern Corean history. We walked on through the little lane which brought us to the King, passed through a sentinelled gate, and beheld the dwelling of the real ruler of Corea, a low building with a gray-tiled roof and broad veranda, reached by terraced flights of stone steps. The old hero stood on the threshold. He shook hands with me like an American politician. In spite of his seventy- eight years, his voice was trumpet-like. His laugh was a roar, accompanied by a convulsion of his whole body.
" We are ready to open Corea to the world," he said, as he ordered tea to be set before us. " The country can no longer be kept sealed to foreigners. But this change is too sudden. Corea is a peculiar country. For thousands of years our people have clung to their usages. The customs of ages cannot be given up in a day. The surrender to Western civilization must be gradual. That is the way of old Asia."
As the laughing giant sprawled back in his chair and joked with us over the fragrant tea, it was hard to believe that, thirty years before, he
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had beheaded hundreds of innocent Christians to gratify his hatred of the "Western barba- rians," and had ordered wholesale butcheries of his own countrymen, because they had dared to champion the cause of modern civilization.
Poor, dreaming Corea ! Some day the Ameri- can syndicates will get hold of her, and her crimes against common sense will be expiated.
The King of Corea is now an Emperor. Already the clang of the electric trolley car and the clamor of the gold miner are heard in his dominions. Steam railways and cotton mills are to be built. The protection sought for by the Emperor has been found, not in American bayonets, but in jealous American capital. The sober, foolish hermits listen to the footsteps of approaching Western civilization with an un- formed sense of terror, for the gods of eternal calm cannot live with the god of the useful.
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CHAPTER IV
A Ride with the Japanese Invaders in Manchuria
ATTER sweeping the armed Chinese hordes from Corea, the Emperor of Japan sent twenty-three thousand of his brave little men to conquer China — a rich and venerable empire of four hundred million inhabitants — and they did it.
The steamer that carried General Hasagawa and his brigade of Kumomoto troops, to join the army of invasion on the Manchurian coast afforded endless entertainment to Frederic Villiers and me. The queer war dances and singing processions of the Japanese soldiers kept the British war artist busy at his sketch- book. Yet there was an inexpressible sense of order and neatness in all parts of the crowded troop ship, a feeling of law and obedience that surpassed anything I have seen on an American or European transport.
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When we reached the coast of Manchuria, a bleak stretch of uninteresting shore, backed by treeless hills and dotted here and there with tile-roofed farmhouses, the whole Japanese force — men, horses, ammunition, food, and cannons — was carried to the land in little flat skiffs. It was a marvellous feat.
But the most extraordinary thing about our landing was the appearance of hundreds of smiling, tall Manchurians, who waded out in the shallow sea and helped to pull the boats of the invaders ashore. It was not fear that induced the pig-tailed giants to assist in the invasion of their soil, but a mere absence of national sentiment. We saw abundant signs of this spirit of indifference afterward, and that day the Japanese laughed heartily at the lack of patriotism in Manchuria, and predicted the swift collapse of China.
" We will take the Emperor from Peking in chains within three months," said one of Hasa- gawa's colonels as he rode through the mud on the shoulders of a cheerful native, playfully tickling the fellow's thighs with his spurs.
All along the coast could be seen the
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steamers from which the main Japanese army, commanded by Field-marshal Count Oyama, had just landed, and the great fleet of warships which had convoyed the invaders across the Yellow Sea.
We were now in the Liatong peninsula, the ancient home of the once dreaded hosts of Manchurian horsemen, who imposed their own pigtail on the Chinese as a sign of conquest.
As the field-marshal had moved on to attack the walled city of Kinchow and the seven great forts of Talien-wan, which lay between us and Port Arthur, the mightiest fortress in Asia, we were bound to follow at once and overtake him before the fighting began.
Mounted on little ponies, borrowed from a Japanese officer, Mr. Villiers and I rode along the track of the advancing army, leaving our interpreters and baggage to catch up with us in any way they could.
All day we moved through a desolate coun- try, almost barren of trees, with now and then a few acres of rice or corn or millet growing in the level ground between the rocky hills — the well-built little houses and the tawdry Buddhist
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shrines on the roadside deserted, windows and doors smashed and the small gardens tram- pled flat.
At night we could see the flames of burning settlements, and several times we rode through the smouldering ruins of Manchurian villages, with none to greet us but troops of starving, howling dogs, snapping at the legs of our ponies, until a revolver shot would rid us of their attentions.
The moonlight lay white on the road, so that we were able to keep our course. The camp- fires of the Japanese coolies — the unarmed laborers who accompany all Japanese armies — began to redden the way. As we hurried on we could see the tired, barefooted men, gath- ered around caldrons of steaming rice. Occa- sionally we would overtake a silent squad of soldiers pushing on towards the front.
As the night wore on and our ponies showed signs of exhaustion, Mr. Villiers decided to join a coolie camp for food and rest until the morn- ing. I did not dare to stop. An artist might tarry on the road and gather materials for his pencil, but a correspondent, responsible for the
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news, must not halt. The field-marshal was ahead, and with him there might be rival corre- spondents. Who knew what might happen that very night ? The clatter of my pony's hoofs seemed to intensify the loneliness of the way as I pressed on, leaving my experienced comrade to find sleep on the hard roadside. An hour later I passed a dead Manchurian peasant lying with ghastly upturned face beside the glowing ashes of a farmhouse. The coun- try grew more desolate. The moon sank. It was hard to find the way. Again and again I had to dismount and, with my bull's-eye lantern, seek out the trampled track of the army. Once in a while I could hear the faint clink-clank of the Japanese soldiers working somewhere near the road on the field telegraph line. Presently a mounted Japanese courier dashed by me in the darkness, shouting something I could not understand.
Now there was no sign of life anywhere, no friendly light, and no sound but the beating of my tired animal's feet. My pony began to stumble. Twice I lost the road. There was danger that I had ridden too far and was on
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hostile ground. The darkness prevented me from seeing the surrounding country. I dis- mounted and examined the road with my lan- tern. There was not a trace of the army to be seen. My heart sank. What with hunger and the fatigue of my terrible ride, I was ready to sink to the ground. I tried to mount my pony again, but the poor beast went on his knees.
At that moment I heard the harsh challenge of a Japanese sentry, and with an answering cry of "Nippon!" ("Japan!") I ran forward to find myself on the outmost picket line of Oyama's escort. Presently an officer appeared, and I explained in French that I was in search of the field-marshal. He told me that I had ridden two miles beyond the headquarters, and sent a soldier to lead my horse as I retraced my way.
When I reached the farmhouse where the field-marshal slept, I was glad to crawl under a blanket between two hospitable staff officers lying on a wooden couch. They sleepily in- formed me that nothing important had hap- pened, but that the advance brigade, which
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was ahead of us, would attack the walls of Kinchow the next day. Thank God ! I was not too late. In a minute I was fast asleep.
Daybreak found us in the saddle, with the fat Japanese field-marshal, a good-natured, kindly old politician, riding at the head of his staff. As we moved forward, a courier arrived from the front with news that the advance guard was in sight of Kinchow. We spurred our horses and pressed on with all possible speed. At noon we halted under a huge pine tree and lunched with the field-marshal, who passed about a tin pail of dried peas roasted over a fire. Each man took a handful of peas and crunched them under his teeth.
" It is all we have," said Count Oyama, laughingly, " but eat heartily, gentlemen ; if we capture Kinchow, we shall fare better to-night."
A sudden sound of heavy cannon firing in the distance interrupted the frugal meal. The fight at Kinchow had begun. Every man leaped to his saddle, and off we went at a gallop. But, alas, when we reached the scene of the battle, Kinchow had been taken. The little walled city founded by Manchurian war- So
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riors three hundred years before had been abandoned after an artillery duel of an hour, and we rode through the dynamite-shattered city gate to see the pavements stained with the blood of a few women, children, and old men, accidentally killed by shell fire, and the terri- fied inhabitants kowtowing on their knees to their conquerors.
We passed right through the city, and in the plain beyond we found the reserves of General Yamaji's division. The famous one-eyed divi- sion commander — the most terrible personality and the best fighter in the Japanese army — had ordered Noghi's and Nishi's brigades to attack the seven immense forts surrounding Talien Bay, six miles from Kinchow, — mighty masses of masonry, carrying forty- and fifty-ton Krupp rifles and protected by earthworks, de- scending at some points almost perpendicularly into the sea from a height of three hundred feet. These works were a triumph of German engineering and military science — massive, impenetrable, connected at all angles by tele- phones, and guarded against naval attacks by a harbor thickly strewn with torpedoes.
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Here the Japanese generals expected to find a strong Chinese force, and they were prepared to lose thousands of men in the battle.
There were three positions to be attacked. On the left of the bay was Fort Jokasan, with five five-inch rifles commanding the water ; and a mighty redoubt, with three-inch Krupp field pieces covering the land approach. To the right of the bay, on the hills, were three large forts, — Seidaisan, Cosan, and Lo-Orrian. The first two were armed with six- and seven-inch Krupp guns, and the third with six- and eight- inch Creusot guns. Stretching out in the middle of the bay was a tongue of rocky country ending in a high hill, on which were built the three powerful Oshozima forts, defended by six- and seven-inch Krupp guns.
A thrill of expectant fear ran through the army as the great guns of Jokasan were turned upon the advancing Japanese regiment on the left of our line. For two hours the hills shook with the shock of the battery. All the other guns in the chain of forts surrounding the har- bor were sending shells wildly about the coun- try. The regiment attacking Jokasan advanced
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at a double-quick. Then it charged. The Jap- anese first reached three large intrenched earth- works, from which came a sputtering musketry fire. Two or three quick volleys were fired, and a few Chinese soldiers were seen dashing away from the earthworks, stripping off their uni- forms as they ran.
Suddenly the guns of Jokasan were silent. The Japanese fixed bayonets and made a charge up the huge mass of masonry and earth- works, only to find the stronghold absolutely vacant. The gunners had crossed the bay in small boats, and the rest of the garrison had sneaked away along the shore. The great fort with its magnificent guns and enormous stores of ammunition had been surrendered almost without a blow. It was an astounding situation — so inexplicable that General Yamaji sus- pected a masked movement. But that ended the battle for the night.
I slept that night in a Kinchow shop, lying down in the darkness on a soft wreck of mer- chandise, and when I awoke at daybreak I found myself stretched out on heaps of embroid- ered silks, with mandarins' hats and boots and
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wonderful jackets and glittering ornaments scattered about in brilliant confusion, my pillow being a painted wooden monster without a head. It was like fairyland to awaken in such a scene of shimmering splendor. But I must confess that the most glorious thing in that room was a plain tin of Chicago corned beef. Such is the coarse nature of a war correspondent after a forced march on dried peas and water.
All night Noghi's brigade had waited at the approach to the three Oshozima forts. Here great slaughter was expected. When there was light enough to move, the advance began across a wrinkled, stony valley. A terrific sound of gongs and drums was heard in the forts, and the brigade halted for a few minutes. The fact was that the Chinese had abandoned Oshozima during the night. They had sent back forty or fifty soldiers to secure the personal property of the officers. These men were surprised by the Japanese, and hoping to frighten the enemy and gain time, they were pounding the alarm apparatus in the forts. The Japanese line swept straight up the giant escarpments, but not a gun was fired. They began to realize
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that there was no enemy before them. Here and there they could see a Chinaman skulking away.
Then the great batteries of Lo-Orisan, on the right side of the bay, began to pour shells into Oshozima. Nishi's brigade boldly advanced against the three forts. For three hours there was a deafening cannonade. We could see the shells from the Creusot rifles exploding all along the hillside. But every shell went wide of the mark. The Chinese gunners ran wildly up and down behind the ramparts of the forts. When the Japanese skirmish line got within range, and their bullets began to patter over the Chinese guns, the garrison of the fort ran down the hillsides and fled toward Port Arthur.
So the seven great modern strongholds of Talien-Wan fell into the hands of Japan. By nine o'clock in the morning all was over, and a position which two regiments might have held against a whole army was given up.
As the Japanese troops were advancing against Oshozima, I rode with General Yamaji and his staff into one of the smaller entrenched works on the plain below. A Chinese shell,
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exploding near me, wounded my horse and threw me to the ground, breaking one of my ribs and injuring my knee. In that condition I had to ride back to Kinchow. The wounds were not serious, but the bandages which the Japanese surgeons applied were fearfully im- pressive, and when Mr. Villiers arrived that night — after losing his horse and walking thirty miles over the hills to find me swathed like a hero — he looked absolutely envious.
The jolly old field-marshal gave the pawn- shop of Kinchow to Mr. Villiers and myself as a residence. It was an interesting place. The Chinese troops had looted the storerooms before they retired from the city, and we found furs and costly silk robes and gold and silver orna- ments scattered about on the ground in the courtyard, with rare old enamelled head-dresses, chains, and chatelaines — treasures of the local aristocracy — tangled up in piles of silver bracelets.
The next day, the white-bearded, blue-clad giant who owned the place returned and knelt down to thank us for letting him sit down in his own house. We gave him a bottle of cham-
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pagne, which the field-marshal had sent to us with a pair of live chickens. The old Manchu- rian sniffed at the foaming wine and eyed us suspiciously. Were we trying to poison him ? He raised the cup again and again to his lips, shivered and set it down without tasting. Then he swallowed the cupful and waited for the sensation. His dark eyes rolled upward and his face softened. An expression of inef- fable peace came into his aged countenance. Putting the bottle to his lips, he drained it, smacked his lips, and crossed his bony hands on his stomach contentedly. His eyes brightened, his cheeks grew rosy. Death had no terrors now.
" Where do you get it ? " he said to our interpreter.
" In France."
" How far away is that country ? How long does it take to get there ? "
Two days later, we took a walk on top of the great wall that ran around the stricken town and saw a sight of horror.
Seven women and three little girls were dragged out of a well in an old garden, and laid
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stiff and dripping among the faded flowers and drifting leaves. They had drowned themselves when the Japanese began to shell the place, fearing the fate that befalls women after Asiatic victories.
There they lay, entwined together in a last embrace, a silent memorial of the virtue of Manchurian women. Four were the wives of prominent men; the others were their daughters and servants.
The victorious army went rumbling on through the streets — horses, men, baggage carts, cannon — and the brilliant pageantry of the field-marshal's staff swept around the cor- ner. But none saw the ten stark figures in the high-walled Chinese garden ; none save a group of tearful men, too cowardly to fight in defence of their homes, and the two pitying war corre- spondents on the city wall.
Yet Kinchow was once the home of chivalry and heroism. Here the hereditary knights of Manchu reared the walls of a city three hun- dred years ago, and planted their banners. But in the principal temple, before the forsaken gods of Manchuria, where countless warriors
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had sworn allegiance to their country, a Chi- nese soldier, in full uniform, committed suicide while the Japanese army was entering the city.
Who can explain this craven instinct in a once valorous race ? It is not hard to under- stand how men can have political loyalty and patriotism educated out of them; but surely women, who prized their honor, and their hus- bands' honor, more than their lives, were worth dying for in battle.
After a few days' rest we moved on toward Port Arthur. The battery of thirty siege guns was still floundering on the roads in the rear, but Hasagawa's brigade of Kumomoto men had caught up with the field-marshal, and the whole army of invasion was assembled for the final stroke — about twenty-three thousand men, and forty-eight guns.
While Oyama's army moved forward across the rough country, the main Japanese fleet, com- manded by Admiral Ito, steamed slowly along the peninsular coast, constantly exchanging communications with the field-marshal.
As the splendid columns marched through the valleys and over the hills, now wading in the
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streams, and now sprawling painfully among loose, jagged rocks, or plodding heavily in drift- ing sand, the wonderful discipline and endurance of the Japanese soldiery displayed itself. No flags, no music, no pomp ; a silent, businesslike organization, magnificently equipped and offi- cered, with one common purpose uniting thou- sands of men — the glory of Japan.
Mr. Villiers and I had abandoned the field- marshal's headquarters and rode with General Yamaji, the one-eyed, — a coarse, reticent, sinister man, demoniac in his energy and temperament, but modest, and the finest soldier in the East. It was a hard march, with little food, and, at times, no water. When our vanguard ap- proached the scene of the coming battle, a part of the Chinese garrison advanced out of Port Arthur and surprised a small body of Japanese cavalry scouts in the depth between the hills which adjoins the valley leading to Port Arthur. I arrived at the front just in time to see Nishi's brigade send flanking columns around the hill to cut off the Chinese.
I could see the Chinese advancing in three columns from the southwest and northwest. It
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was a brilliant procession of flags and banners. The sound of gongs and squeaking trumpets came faintly up from the moving pageant.
Away to the left were the Japanese cavalry- men in a cloud of dust, cutting their way back on the main road through the line of tossing red- and-white standards. The brave little scouts had dismounted and were firing carbine volleys, while a few squads of Japanese infantrymen were creeping to the rescue and keeping up a brisk peppering. There were at least fifteen hundred Chinamen in the three columns.
Suddenly the enemy caught sight of our rapid flank movement and fled. I rode down the main road and joined the scouts as the Chinese force disappeared through the hills. The Japanese had lost eight men in the fight, and forty-two were wounded. The Japanese dead lay on the roadside, headless and mutilated. Several bodies were without hands ; two had been butchered like sheep. It was this mutilation of their dead which the Japanese afterward cited as a partial justification of the slaughter of unarmed men at Port Arthur.
Accompanied by the correspondent of the
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London Times, I rode the next day with a re- connoitring party into the wide valley that leads to Port Arthur. We left our main escort con- cealed behind a grove of trees, and moved cautiously toward the distant cannon-crowned hills, the little group of Japanese officers carry- ing their revolvers in their hands. A lieutenant and sergeant rode ahead. Just as we came to a rising in the ground there was a sudden blaze of rifle fire and the lieutenant dashed back alone. The Chinese pickets had wounded and captured the sergeant. We afterward heard that the poor fellow was crucified alive in Port Arthur.
" Run for your lives ! " shrieked the colonel commanding our party, as he dug the spurs into his horse.
We retreated to a grassy knoll and watched the Chinese sharpshooters creeping here and there in an attempt to surround us. But they were too cowardly to close in. Presently we saw a cloud of dust sweeping down through the head of the valley from which we came, and in a few minutes a battalion of Japanese infantry came to our rescue, Mr. Villiers, my gallant camp comrade, riding in front.
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A line of Japanese skirmishers drove the enemy back to a slope in front of Port Arthur, where we could see them waving their gorgeous banners and dragging a field-gun into position.
Towering upon the hills behind and to the left of them was a multitude of forts, but not a can- non was fired. The hilltops on the west side of the valley were dotted with Chinese sentinels, while squads of watchful Japanese soldiers were grouped on the opposite heights. Horsemen were scouring the ravines and roads in all direc- tions, to guard against a surprise. There was a touch of Indian fighting in the scene.
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CHAPTER V
Battle and Massacre of Port Arthur
ALL was ready for the battle of Port Arthur, and the Japanese army was already moving through the night into position for an attack upon the sixteen great modern forts at daybreak.
The little group of saddle-weary foreign cor- respondents stood around a heap of blazing wood while their horses were being fed by the excited coolies. The wide valley flamed and roared with the camp-fires of the invading host, and thousands of dust-covered coolies moved in the darkness with the ammunition and food. I anxiously watched a small man pacing slowly before a smouldering fire around which were gathered a few whispering staff- officers. His head was bowed, and his hands were locked behind his back as he moved. It was General Yamaji, the terrible little division commander — he who deliberately plucked out his own eye
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at school to show his comrades that he was not a coward. Our fate depended upon this man, for he was the real general of the attacking forces, the stout old field-marshal being a politi- cal rather than a military element in the situation.
Yamaji turned away from the fire, and with a surly nod of the head to his officers mounted his horse. The staff followed his example. I swung myself into the saddle and joined the general as he pushed forward with the right wing of the army across the head of the valley and around the face of the western hills, in preparation for the turning movement which was to be the key of the battle.
We were carried along in the darkness with a horrible sense of universal motion, on the edges of giant earth seams and steep precipices, with the artillery clanging and grinding, and the ponderous siege batteries groaning over the loose stones in the dry river beds ; horses plunging and stumbling, with mountain guns strapped on their backs ; the swift clatter of the cavalry sweeping backward and forward with news of the enemy, the steady tramp and
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murmur of the infantry ; the crawling lines of coolies attending the fighting men; now and then a horse and rider rolling down over the rocks ; frightened steeds shying at camp-fires ; a procession of ammunition boxes carried along like black coffins ; occasionally a glimpse of a ravine with rivers of bayonets gleaming at the bottom of it ; anxious and hungry skirmishers creeping on their bellies along the ridges of the distant peaks — and yet, a curious hush over it all — the sense of a secret to be kept.
Not a sign of a flag, the roll of a drum, nor the note of a bugle; nothing but the rush of human feet, the beat of hoofs, the crunching of wheels, and the clank of cold steel.
It made a man grow cold to be near Yamaji and see the gleam in that one eye. There were sounds of voices around him as the swift mes- sengers came and went in the gloom, but it was a strange babble of Asiatic accents, falling weirdly upon the ears of a New York news- paper writer, borne along atomlike in that human torrent.
If ever a man can realize the insignificance of the individual compared with the force of organ-
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ized society, if ever there can be borne in upon his understanding the fact that his true measure in the world is the five or six feet that span the length of his grave, if ever he can be over- whelmed by a sense of loneliness in the midst of a multitude, it should be in such a scene as this.
Mile after mile we rode in the dark, through valleys and over hills ; hour after hour the eager troops moved with us, and just as the faint, cold light appeared in the eastern sky, we reached the head of the right wing of the army, where Yamaji dismounted and was greeted by Noghi.
We climbed to the top of a rocky peak, and saw before us, on a hill, Isuyama, the triple fort which was the key of the fight. It was an oblong quadrangle, with high, thick earthen walls, connected by a strong shelter wall with a still larger and stronger square fort on higher ground, above which ran another wall to a great round redoubt commanding the valley and town of Port Arthur.
Shut in by hills on all sides, we could see nothing but the triple fort with its lines of gay flags, for we had made a detour of eight
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miles in order to surprise the Chinese by a western attack, instead of advancing straight down the valley. To the left were our moun- tain batteries, stealthily planted on a ridge the day before.
Below and in front of us was a dark line of Japanese infantry kneeling in a ploughed field, waiting for light enough to storm Isu- yama, and in the gully to our right was another battalion of bayonets ready for the signal. Thousands of men were massed in the rear.
Everything was silent and motionless in the dawning light. Yamaji lifted his cap and made a signal. The Japanese mountain bat- teries began to play upon Isuyama and the kneeling line in the field below us fired volley after volley at the tops of the rough, brown walls.
Instantly the battlements were crowded with warriors in red, yellow, blue, and green, and the guns of the triple fort seemed to cover the hillside with flame and smoke. The Chinese had five-inch Krupp rifles, and nine-inch mortars with auxiliary batteries of revolving and quick- firing guns.
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Shells began to drop from all sides. Even the great sea forts, with their mighty twelve- inch rifles, and all the forts along the valley of Port Arthur, aimed over the hills at us; for Isuyama was the key and, once it should fall, the whole left flank of the Chinese would be exposed. The taking of the triple fort was to be a signal to the rest of the Japan- ese forces. We could not see the giant forts in the distance, but we could hear the scream- ing of their shells overhead.
As the Chinese batteries splintered the hillside and sent clouds of earth up out of the ploughed ground, the Japanese line kneel- ing at the base of the slope in front of Isuyama stood up and advanced in the teeth of the guns, firing continuously as they went. The shock of the cannon explosions made the banners on the walls of the three forts dance. The Chinese stuck to their guns. On, on, pressed the slender, dark line, with trails of fire and smoke running up and down the ranks. The Japanese soldiers moved as pre- cisely as though they were on parade. Then the battalion waiting in the ravine moved forward
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in column formation on the right, to attack the side of the nearest fort. As the thin skirmish line reached the steep scarp in front of the thundering walls, it suddenly swung around and joined the column on the right, and the united battalions, with fixed bayonets, rushed up the steep slope toward the side wall, while the Chinese shells tore gaps in their ranks.
By this time a mountain battery had been carried up on the dizzy ridge where Yamaji stood, the soldiers pressing their bodies against the horses to keep them from slipping; and five minutes afterward six guns were dropping shells inside of the first fort. The Chinese gunners leaped backward from their batteries.
With a ringing yell the Japanese dashed up to the fort and scaled the ramparts by sticking bayonets in the earthwork, shooting and bayoneting the garrison, and chasing the enemy along the connecting walls.
A cheer went up from the hills and valleys as the victorious troops pushed on into the second fort, and finally captured the great redoubt on top of the hill, while the fugitive
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Chinese scrambled down into the valley on the other side.
Once in the redoubt the whole battlefield lay stretched before us, with its miles of rolling smoke and roaring guns. At the head of the valley was the comfortable old field-marshal and the reserve centre, with its crashing field- guns and siege battery. We were on the right of the main valley. On the left of the valley, just opposite to our position, were seven strong Chinese forts. The three looking north were the Shoju forts, while the four facing westward were the Nerio or "Two Dragon" forts. At the foot of the valley was the town of Port Arthur, spread about the enclosed harbor and, beyond it, towering up on the sea ridge, were six immense modern forts, powerful masses of masonry, standing alone on separate hill- tops, shielded by mighty earthworks, and armed with the heaviest and newest rifles and mortars. No fleet in the world would have dared to attack such a position from the sea. One of these sea forts was Ogunsan. It stood four hundred and fifty feet above the town. To the east of it were the Lo-Leshi
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forts. The other three sea forts were on a tiny peninsula to the west of the harbor, and were known as the Manjuyama forts. Hasa- gawa's brigade had moved along the seacoast and was attacking the Shoju and Nerio forts on their eastern sides and harassing the Lo- Leshi forts on the coast.
When we entered the redoubt overlooking this vast scene of conflict, Yamaji's officers tore the white canvas side from a Chinese tent, and, cutting a disk from a red Chinese banner, made a rude Japanese flag and hoisted it on a Manchurian lance. The signal of vic- tory could be seen from every fort. Instantly the redoubt became an artillery target. The ground about it was shaken by the explosion of shells. The air was filled with screaming sounds as great projectiles from the sea forts passed overhead.
But Yamaji stood out on the wall of the redoubt in plain sight, as silent and unmoved as a carved image, while showers of shattered rock and earth fell about him. It was a face to study — cold, stoical, Asiatic. The battle seemed to bore him ; it was too easy. There
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was not enough bloodshed. His one eye searched the scene like the eye of a machine. Once he smiled and showed his yellow teeth — a ghastly smile.
Yet only a few days before I saw Yamaji release the little singing birds found in the Talien-Wan forts lest they might starve in their cages — so strangely is mercy and cruelty compounded in the human heart.
The Japanese field and siege guns were pounding away at the seven forts on the other side of the valley, and Yamaji's mountain batteries joined them. It was a colossal duel of war enginery. Through the great arches of fire and smoke came shrieking shells and the close confidential hum of rifle bullets at one's ear — those invisible messengers of death which seem to speak to each man separately.
The arsenal in Port Arthur had caught fire and was ripping, roaring, and rattling, vomiting flame and smoke like a volcano, as half an acre of massed shells and cartridges exploded. Miles and miles of red and white banners fluttered on the Chinese walls stretched between the seven forts on the opposite ridge.
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We could see the Manchurian warriors rushing along these walls, and hear the din of their gongs and trumpets. Two or three Chinese battalions with enormous flags were stationed on the lower hills, out of reach of the Japan- ese artillery fire, and in a position to resist Yamaji, should he cross the valley. The Shoju and Nerio forts were the prey of Hasa- gawa, who charged up from the eastern valley, taking advantage of earth seams and irregu- larities in the ground. Two torpedo mines were exploded in front of his lines, but the Chinese touched the keys too soon. All over the valley were sunken mines connected by wires with the walled camps and forts, but somehow the enemy failed to use them.
Just as the front rank of Hasagawa's brigade was dashing up to the Shoju forts, a Japanese shell set one of them on fire, and with a roar and shock that stopped the battle for a moment, the shells for the heavy guns, piled on the floor of the fort, exploded. The Chinese garrison fled over the ridges, and Hasagawa's men came sweeping around the rough hill to find the fort a mass of flames, heaving and
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reeling as the fire reached additional stores of shells. That ended all hope of defending the seven forts. The Chinese abandoned one fort after the other, and retreated. Hasagawa was in possession of the Shoju and Nerio hills.
But the most dramatic scene in the battle was yet to come. After taking Isuyama, Yamaji's infantry had clambered down the precipitous face of the bluff into the valley, and, having driven the Chinese out of a forti- fied barrack, were huddled behind the huge structure. Beyond this lay the smooth naval parade-ground of Port Arthur, and on the other side of it, a shallow stream with a long, narrow, wooden bridge on stilts. At the other end of the bridge were rifle-pits filled with Chinese infantry, defending a road leading into the town between two small hills, on which were three field-guns manned by the only good gunners on the Chinese side.
Hasagawa had captured one side of the valley. Yamaji was in possession of the other side. The town of Port Arthur had yet to be taken. Yamaji was nervous and jealous.
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It was plain that unless his troops moved quickly, Hasagawa, the only general outside of his division, might have the honor of taking the town itself and the colossal Ogunsan fort, the monarch of the coast.
Every time Yamaji's men attempted to move away from the cover of the barrack walls the Chinese riflemen in the pits beyond the bridge swept the smooth parade-ground with steady volleys from Winchester repeating rifles. Again and again the Japanese started out, only to retreat before the hail of bullets.
Yamaji ground his teeth. His face was livid with rage. In vain his staff officers shouted from the redoubt to the troops below to make a charge across the bridge. In vain the gen- eral made fierce gestures. The Japanese had struck good Chinese fighting men for the first time since Tatsumi's troops stormed the north- west heights of Ping Yang.
The little battery on the hill, commanding the bridge and the road to the town, was barking and playing the mischief with the Japanese sharpshooters on the walls of the barracks. Occasionally the great guns of
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Ogunsan spoke, but the shells went far and wide. The shrill rattle of distant musketry could be heard over the hills where Hasagawa's men were slaughtering the retreating garrisons of the seven forts. Thousands of the enemy were trying to escape eastward. Troops of plumed Manchurians on white horses swept away through the ravines.
From the torn ramparts of the redoubt we could see a line of eight or nine Japanese war- ships stretched parallel with the coast, with columns of spray jetting up from the badly aimed shells of the sea forts. Torpedo boats darted about the entrance of the harbor, firing upon junks loaded with fugitive inhabitants.
Yamaji stood twitching his hands murderously, and glaring through his one eye at the regi- ment skulking behind the barrack below. No words can describe the fury of that fearful countenance.
The Japanese army had actually been halted by Chinamen at the threshold of Port Arthur ! A half-mile more and the Chinese Empire would be conquered !
The crouching regiment suddenly sent out
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skirmish lines to the right and left, and these, gaining the shelter of low walls on the edges of the drill-ground, delivered a hot fire into the flanks of the Chinese rifle-pits. A battalion knelt in a semicircle on a plateau in the rear of the barrack and sent volley after volley against the stubborn defenders of the road.
Under the cover of this fire a small column dashed over the bullet-swept space, crossed the bridge, drove the Chinese sharpshooters out of their intrenchments, and seized the battery on the hill behind. At the same time the field- marshal ordered the reserve centre to move down the valley from the village of Suishiyeh, and thousands of men came rushing along the roads behind the troops already pressing into the doomed town.
At this point I left Yamaji, and climbing down the face of the bluff into the valley, made my way across the drill-ground and the bridge to the top of a hill on the edge of the town. Here I found the British and American military at- tached. We watched the vanguard of Japan as it entered Port Arthur, firing volleys through the town as it advanced.
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Not a shot was fired in reply. Even Ogun- san was silent and deserted. The Chinese gar- rison had escaped. The frightened inhabitants cowered in the streets.
Then began the meaningless and unnecessary massacre which horrified the civilized world and robbed the Japanese victory of its dignity. Up to that time there was not a stain on the Japa- nese flag.
As the triumphant troops poured into Port Arthur they saw the heads of their slain com- rades hanging by cords, with the noses and ears shorn off. There was a rude arch at the entrance to the town decorated with these bloody trophies. It may have been this sight which roused the blood of the conquerors, and ban- ished humanity and mercy from their hearts ; or it may have been mere lust of slaughter — the world can judge for itself. But the Japa-
»
nese killed everything they saw.
Unarmed men, kneeling in the streets and begging for life, were shot, bayoneted, or be- headed. The town was sacked from end to end, and the inhabitants were butchered in their own houses.
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A procession of ponies, donkeys, and camels went out of the western side of Port Arthur with swarms of terrified men and children. The fugitives waded across a shallow inlet, shivering and stumbling in the icy water. A company of infantry was drawn up at the head of the inlet, and poured steady volleys at the dripping victims ; but not a bullet hit its mark.
The last to cross the inlet were two men. One of them led two small children. As they staggered out on the opposite shore a squadron of cavalry rode up and cut down one of the men. The other man and the children retreated into the water and were shot like dogs.
All along the streets we could see the plead- ing storekeepers shot and sabred. Doors were broken down and windows torn out.
The sound of music — the first we had heard since the invasion began — drew us back to the drill-ground, where all the Japanese generals were assembled to congratulate the field-mar- shal— all save Noghi, who was pursuing the enemy among the hills. What cheering and handshaking ! What solemn strains from the band! And all the while we could hear the
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rattle of volleys in the streets of Port Arthur, and knew that the helpless people were being slain in cold blood, and their homes pillaged.
That was the coldest night we had known. The thermometer suddenly went down to twenty degrees above zero. I found my way up the valley to Suishiyeh, although I was so tired that I twice had to lie down on the roadside. There was nothing to eat in the little house where I slept, but the field-mar- shal sent me a bottle of Burgundy. For two weeks I had not taken my boots off.
In the morning I walked into Port Arthur with the correspondent of the London Times. The scenes in the streets were heartrending. Everywhere we saw bodies torn and mangled, as if by wild beasts. Dogs were whimpering over the frozen corpses of their masters. The victims were mostly shopkeepers. Nowhere the trace of a weapon, nowhere a sign of re- sistance. It was a sight that would damn the fairest nation on earth.
There was one trembling old woman, and only one, in that great scene of carnage, her wrinkled face quivering with fear, and her
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limbs trembling as she wandered among the slain. Where was she to go ? What was she to do ? All the men were killed, all the women were off in the frozen hills, and yet not an eye of pity was turned upon her, but she was jostled and laughed at until she turned down a blood-stained alley, to see God knows what new horror.
Port Arthur was a rambling town of small dwellings and shops which grew up about the great modern Chinese naval depot, with its wonderful dry-dock, the largest in Asia.
When Oyama advanced from Kinchow, his chief of staff, Major Cameo, sent a captured spy into Port Arthur with the following letter addressed to General Ju, the Chinese com- mander who fled with his army from Talien- Wan: —
" To HIS EXCELLENCY, GENERAL Ju : —
" I am familiar with your great reputation, but I am sorry I have never met you. For many years I was military attache at Peking, and I thought to make your acquaintance. I regret that I must now meet you in the field.
" Our army has taken Kinchow, and I learn
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that your Excellency, being unable to defend that city, retreated to Port Arthur. But this is not your fault — rather the fortune of war.
" The soldiers you command are all newly re- cruited, and their number is small. On the other hand, our troops have had many years of thorough training, and are brave in battle. They are not to be compared to yours. Our numbers are also superior to yours. We have about fifty thousand men.
" We are about to march on Port Arthur. It is not necessary to predict the result, or say which side will have the victory. Your troops were defeated in the first battle at Asan. They were also vanquished for a second time at Ping Yang, and for a third time at the Yalu River. Your forces were also defeated on the sea. In- deed, you have not had a victory.
"This being the case, the will of Heaven seems to be plain. Your Excellency no doubt intends to defend Port Arthur, but it will be useless to attempt it. Our army is fighting for humanity and right, and if any resist us, they will be de- stroyed ; but if any one throws away his weapon, he will be treated kindly, and according to his rank.
" Will your Excellency believe my word and surrender to us ? This is not only the happiest
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course for your Excellency personally, but the best and wisest course for your nation.
" Notwithstanding the fact that I have not made your acquaintance, I take the liberty of letting your Excellency know the facts.
" CAMEO. "Nov. 15, 1894."
It is not necessary to describe in detail the pitiless murder of two thousand unarmed in- habitants of Port Arthur which gave the lie to this official promise of Japan. Whatever I may have written of that three days' slaughter at a time when Japan was seeking admission to the family of civilized nations, it is only just to say that the massacre at Port Arthur was the only lapse of the Japanese from the usages of humane warfare. A witness for civilization, I could not remain silent in the presence of such a crime. The humanity and self-control of the Japanese soldiery during the historic march of the allied nations to Peking, seven years later, — notwithstanding the cruelty and barbarism of some of the European troops, — have redeemed Japan in the eyes of history. The Japanese have demonstrated to the world that their civili- zation is substantial.
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But even in the delirium of Port Arthur, not a Chinese woman was harmed — yes, one, — but she was killed by a volley directed against men. Women were fired at as they fled when the troops entered the town, but it was impossi- ble to distinguish men from women in that fly- ing rabble.
After crossing the Yellow Sea to Japan, and sending the story of Port Arthur to the New York World — whose war correspondent I was — I went to Tokio to attend the national cele- bration of the Japanese victories. The scene in Uyeno Park was one of strange and never-to-be- forgotten beauty. It was said that four hun- dred thousand persons were gathered together in that great festival.
Fantastic maskers danced under the shadows of gnarled and twisted pines ; thrilling sounds of singing filled the air, and from a thick grove came the long, sweet booming of a hidden bell.
Old Japan, with her top-knotted men and her child-women — graceful, poetic, innocent Japan — rustled and glided about in waves of
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relationship to the individual, and manifesting itself in an endless system of squeezing, through the doddering old mandarins and their brutal retainers. To die for such a flag seemed as foolish as the tears of Mark Twain at the grave of Adam. The proclamation of the Chinese Emperor, issued at the most critical stage of the struggle, called upon the inhabitants of Manchuria to resist the invaders — not because their own manhood and honor would be stained by the conquest of their soil, not because their homes were threatened, not because they were to be enslaved by a foreign government, but for the reason that the tombs of the Emperor's ancestors at Moukden were in danger of dese- cration.
To the Japanese soldier, the flag of Japan stood for his own honor. His patriotism was simply an extension of his personal pride. Deep in his heart was the feeling that he who served Japan best, served God and the world best. It was that sentiment, that conviction, which developed the soldier spirit.
No man who has seen the two races in the field can doubt that the Chinese and Japanese
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are equally contemptuous of death. They are all fatalists. But the cold, passionless, abstruse Chinese system of civilization, the mysticism surrounding the throne, the remote- ness of the imperial person from all under- standable human connection with its subjects, has gradually denationalized China, and robbed the Chinese of any personal inspiration to shed their blood for the sake of their soil.
Since the battles of Port Arthur and Wei- Hai-Wei, the " Boxer movement " has called the attention of statesmen to the fact that a national sentiment is springing up in China, not because of the imperial government, but in spite of it.
And it may be that after the Chinese have learned to love China well enough to fight for her, they may love her enough to purge her of cruelty, and corruption, and idle scholastic vanity — love her enough to want to see her honored among the nations for her humanity and usefulness.
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CHAPTER VI
The Avatar of Count Tolstoy
WHILE I was investigating the per- secution of the Jews in Russia for the New York Herald, and trying to keep the Emperor's busy police from pene- trating the secret of my mission, a letter from James Gordon Bennett directed me to find Count Tolstoy, and learn whether his real views of modern marriage were presented in "The Kreutzer Sonata," the extraordinary book which was then attracting attention throughout the civilized world.
A few hours' railway journey from St. Peters- burg to Tula, and a dashing ride in a three- horse sleigh, through a snowstorm, brought me to Yasnia Poliana, the little village in the heart of European Russia, where the great novelist
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dwelt with his wife and children, among the rough peasants.
Altogether a strong face. A massive, wrin- kled brow ; blue-gray eyes, able to see the inside and outside of a man at once ; a powerful, flat- nostrilled nose, jutting between high cheek bones ; a mouth made for pity ; a vast gray beard ; a giant body clad in a coarse peasant's dress, gathered in at the waist under a stout leather belt; feet shod in shoes made by the brown, sinewy hands of the wearer.
Such was Count Lyoff Tolstoy, the god of Russian literature, as I found him in the sav- agely bare house where his greatest novels were written.
It was all so strange, — and it was stranger still to an American writer, fresh from hard- headed London, Paris, and New York, — to sit with the great master in this house, whose doors were never closed to the hungry or weary, whose table was always spread, whose owner called every wandering pilgrim a brother.
That night, as I lay in the Count's little iron cot, among his books, I heard the clock strike twelve, and it would not have surprised me if
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the clock had struck thirteen, so unusual were the ways of that wonderful place.
At the rough little table on which " War and Peace" and "Anna Karenina" were penned, I sat for hours with Count Tolstoy, struggling against the force of his sweeping condemnations of marriage as it is and not as it ought to be. And then I came to know how the husband of a high-souled, loving woman and the father of thirteen children came to write that awful pro- test against married life in the nineteenth century.
When the wild Count was married, nearly thirty years before, his wife was a mere child. It was this young girl — a slender beauty of good family and fine breeding — who for years strangled the cynicism that lurked in the novel- ist's ink bottle. When he was writing "War and Peace" she read his manuscript, page by page, and pleaded with him to strike bitter and fierce things out of his work, so that youth and innocence might share his beautiful thoughts without having to look into unveiled depths of loathsomeness. No man had a happier life, and no man owed more to marriage. But for
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the influence of this young wife, the pages of his greatest novels might have been spoiled by the brutalities which she persuaded him to abandon.
These things the Count confessed with almost boyish frankness. And yet, so complex is human nature and the workings of the human mind, that no man in the whole range of literature has held bitterer views of the influ- ence of women upon the higher nature of men. As I saw these two sitting together, after thirty years of unbroken love and sympathy, it was hard to believe that I was talking to the author of the " Kreutzer Sonata."
Ten years before I went to Yasnia Poliana, Count Tolstoy was reading the story of the execution of a group of officers who planned the liberation of the serfs under Nicholas I., when he was seized with a longing to write a romance on the subject that would stir the world.
" But to write such a story I must learn the Russian language more thoroughly," he said to the Countess. " The great ethical truths of the world must be repeated in a new dialect every
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generation. I will go out on the road that runs past our house and talk to the pilgrims who are going to the holy places in Moscow. I will write down every new word that has any new mean- ing to me. I must learn to write as the peas- ants speak. I must learn to think as the peasants think."
So the Count went out on the highway, and day after day he wandered along with the hungry pilgrims and studied the human soul through the human tongue. Beneath the rags and dirt and physical suffering of the pilgrims his eagle eyes discerned a quiet contentment and sense of happiness that troubled him.
" How is it," he would say to the Countess, as he returned at nightfall dusty and bronzed by the weather, " how is it that these people live without money and are happy ? I cannot understand it."
As the weeks grew into months the lines on the novelist's forehead wore deeper and his eyes became sadder.
" No, I can't understand it," he would say. " These peasants and pilgrims are happy, really happy. It is no delusion. They know what
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Count Tolstoy
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it is to live. And yet we, who have money and everything that education can give us, are with- out this peace."
Then the avatar occurred. The soul of the romancist and poet died, and the soul of the reformer and prophet was born.
"It is religion," he cried. "The Church, the blessed Church gives them peace. They care nothing for hunger and nakedness and homelessness when they feel the consolations of true faith. We alone are living without real religion. That is why we cannot understand the happiness of the pilgrims. We are wasting ourselves on empty luxuries."
The Count began to go to church. For days at a time he would pray before the holy ikons. Sometimes prostrating himself face downward for hours on the cold pavement. By fasting, meditation, and appeal he sought heaven. He sternly trampled his grand artist nature under foot.
At this time the reign of Alexander II. ended in a spray of blood, and his stolid son ascended the throne. The liberal epoch had closed. Tolstoy was present in the church of
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the Kremlin when Alexander III. was crowned, and heard the multitude swear the oath of allegiance. Human eyes never looked upon a more brilliant spectacle than that which sur- rounded the new emperor, as, with uplifted hand and streaming eyes, he repeated the solemn coronation vows. Tolstoy returned to his Moscow residence in a profound fit of sad- ness. The Countess was unable to understand the cause of his new unrest, and he was too much absorbed in his own thoughts to offer any explanation. A great light was dawning in his soul. Finally the Count opened his Bible, and turning to the Sermon on the Mount he came to this passage : —
" But I say unto you, swear not at all ; neither by Heaven, for it is God's throne ; nor by the earth, for it is His footstool ; neither by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King. Neither shalt thou swear by thy head, because thou canst not make one hair white or black. But let your communication be yea, yea; nay, nay: for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil."
The oath in the great cathedral, the uplifted
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hands, the open Bible, the droning voice of the richly clad priest, the smoke of incense floating upward among the ancient banners, the gleam- ing malachite and gold — the whole scene was in his mind. The brilliant aristocrat of Rus- sian literature tripped over a verse in the New Testament and arose from the ground a peas- ant prophet, crying out, in a wilderness of formalism, that the Christianity of the nine- teenth century had rejected Christ. In an instant the Greek church for him had crumbled into dust.
" The Church is a false teacher," he said to the Countess. " I have with my own eyes seen its priests administering an oath upon the very scriptures that forbid oaths. I will trust the Church no more. I must read the gospels for myself."
A few lines further on Tolstoy read aloud : " But I say unto you that ye resist not evil ; but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also."
That was a moment of soul tempest. The old familiar Bible words were enchanted.
"Then what is the meaning of these hun-
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dreds of thousands of soldiers wearing the uniform of the Czar, blessed by the Church, night and morning, and trained to kill their fellow-men," he cried. " If it is wrong to re- sist evil, then it is wrong to arm men with deadly weapons and turn the world into a military camp. Swear not ! Resist not evil ! How cruelly the Church has blinded men to the real teachings of Christ. Away with it ! "
Day after day Tolstoy studied the New Testament. As he read on, his conviction that the words of Christ were to be taken literally, grew firmer. He talked to the Countess as though he had discovered some new book, repeating to her again and again passages that seemed to conflict with the whole system of modern society.
" All this ceremony and theological mystery is a mockery of true religion," he said. " Christianity is simply love ; not the love of one person, but the love of all persons, with- out distinction of age, sex, relationship, or nationality. Love is religion, and religion is love."
Then began that sweeping, weird change
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in the Count's life. His splendid house in Moscow was shut up, and he went to make his home with the rough peasants of Yasnia Poliana. His country residence soon gave evidence of his purpose. The carpets disap- peared from the floors, the walls were stripped bare, and all objects of luxury were banished. The Count put on the coarse dress of the common moujik, and buckled a leather belt around his waist. He ploughed the fields with his own hands.
" I have no right to ask other men to work with their muscles and avoid manual toil my- self," he said simply. The village shoemaker became the Count's chum, and the novelist soon began to make shoes in a little workshop of his own. He fraternized with the peasants, and sent his daughters among them to brighten their lives. Work and love became his religion.
Much of this I heard while I sat with the Countess Tolstoy and her daughters and con- sumed my black bread and coffee. Then I went down into the little dingy room where the Count worked as a shoemaker. Tolstoy had just come in from a long walk in the snow,
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and was brushing the wet drops from his beard and blouse. I never saw a more earnest coun- tenance than that which he turned to me as he curled one leg up under him and clasped his muscular hands over his knee. It was all so simple and real — a man who had struggled out of conventionality, back into naturalness. A spectacled, professorial disciple of the Count, dressed in peasant garb, and belted at the waist, sat on a shoe bench and reverently watched his leader.
" The story of the ' Kreutzer Sonata ' is sim- ply a protest against animality and an appeal for the Christianity of Christ," said the Count, searching me with his keen, candid eyes.
" But surely," I said, " you dare not hold up that awful picture as a portrait of the average men and women of to-day ? "
Tolstoy's face was alive with eagerness.
" Why not ? " he said, as he knotted and unknotted his big fingers. " Why not ? Is it not life ? Is it not the truth ? "
" No," I answered. " I cannot say that it is. There is more pure, noble, spiritual love in marriage than you give humanity credit for.
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You judge the many by the few. You frighten men and women, drawn together by love, into the belief that there must be something base and loathsome in it."
"Bah! That is how we talk to ourselves," said the Count. "And the most terrible fea- ture of the whole business is that we go on practising this half-conscious self-deceit. We cater to our base passions, and try to persuade ourselves that we have done some high, disin- terested deed. Why not be honest, and look at the ugly facts ? We approach marriage with preparations that give the lie to our hypocritical pretensions of purity."
"That is a condemnation that needs evi- dence to support it, Count," I said; "and I think you will find it hard to justify in your own mind, when you look back upon your own married life, the conclusion that the whole plan of nature is wrong, and that men and women who unite with no consciousness of impure motives may not safely trust the promptings that are within them."
Tolstoy unbuckled his belt, and clasped his hands behind his head.
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" There you fall into the mistake of those who will not see the truth, because they dread the result of a sincere self -judgment," he said, and his spectacled disciple nodded his head vigorously. " A man or woman has two natures — the animal and the spiritual. If a man deceives himself into believing that a purely physical passion is an attribute of his higher nature, of course he will go on indulg- ing it and increasing it at the expense of his spiritual growth. That is why I protest against the common idea of married love. It is too much associated with personal gratification, too narrow and selfish, and too much directed to brute pleasure. It is not wrong to eat, but it is bestial to make eating an absorbing object of thought. A man should eat to sat- isfy hunger, but if he allows his mind to run on his food, he will become a glutton and beast at the cost of his soul. Eating is neither to be praised nor condemned. It is nature."
" And you mean to say, Count, that it is the result of your observation that brute passion is commonly mistaken for love in marriage?"
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11 1 do. It is the principal source of marital unhappiness — the awakening, the disillusion- ment. We are all hypocrites to ourselves."
" But I, too, have seen much of the world," I insisted, "and I deny the facts on which your argument is based. What would you say if I told you that I myself was in love, without any carnal consciousness ? "
" I would say that you were arguing against yourself to hide the ugly truth. I would say that at the bottom crouched the animal."
" But if the animal is at the bottom, and not at the top, in what does pure affection suffer ? "
" Let me explain," said the Count, standing up. " If you take a rope tied to the top of a maypole in your hand, and make it your object merely to go around the pole, the rope will not rise. The rope is your nature. If you make the animal passions a centre for your life, your nature will become baser and baser. Turn your back on the brute, and strain in the opposite direction, and the rope will rise, all that is fine and imperishable in you will be lifted up — real love, the love that knows no selfish cravings."
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"Then you would counsel me never to marry ? "
" No ; I never would give you such advice. If you are sure that you really love a woman, and that you love her purely, marry her. Try to live with her as you would live with your sis- ter. Do not be afraid that the human race will die out. Children will be born of such a mar- riage, but the love on which it is founded will exist independent of the body — a real love that no change can affect, and from which there will be no rude awakening."
As Tolstoy ceased speaking, I repeated to him Tennyson's argument in " The Princess" : —
" For woman is not undevelopt man,
But diverse ; could we make her as the man Sweet love were slain ; his dearest bond is this,
Not like to like, but like in difference. Yet in the long years liker must they grow ;
The man be more of woman, she of man. He gain in sweetness and in moral height,
Nor lose the wrestling thews that throw the world ; She mental breadth, nor fail in childward care,
Nor lose the childlike in the larger mind, Till at the last she set herself to man
Like perfect music unto noble words ; And so these twain, upon the skirts of time,
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Sit side by side, full summ'd in all their powers, Dispensing harvest, sowing the to-be,
Self reverent each and reverencing each, Distinct in individualities,
But like each other ev'n as those who love. Then comes the statelier Eden back to men ;
Then reign the world's great bridals, chaste and
calm, Then springs the crowning race of humankind."
"Yes," said the Count, when I had ended, " that is a good picture ; but Tennyson was a rhymster. I cannot endure that sort of a poet. When a man has found a word that expresses his thought accurately, and changes that word for the sake of a rhyme, he is a trifler. It is true, though, that a man and a woman joined in pure love make the perfect being."
" In your indictment of the motives that lead to marriage in these days," I said, "you have not counted greatly on the craving for children. Is not the maternal and paternal feeling a desire for a sort of immortality — a longing to renew one's self beyond the grave, to live again in one's children, with all the errors corrected ? Is not this united aspiration of the body and soul pure beyond reproach ? "
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The Count paced the floor of the shoemaker's room, swinging his long arms as he talked.
" It is nature," he said. " It is like hunger — neither good nor bad."
" But is it not spiritual ? Is not the love of children for dolls the first faint awakening of the soul to this idea ? "
" No. In the first place it does not exist in boys, although it is undeniably true that the desire for children is often strong in the minds of pure girls. As I have said, it is simply nature, like the desire for sleep or food."
"You speak, Count, of unselfishness as the distinguishing mark of pure love. Is not mar- riage unselfish ? Is it not actually the begin- ning of a life in which each lives for the other, in which each surrenders personal ideas for the sake of the other ? "
Tolstoy laughed harshly, and laid his great hand on my shoulder.
" How can you ask that ? " he said. " Mar- riage is the worst kind of selfishness, for it is double. There is no egotism like family ego- tism. In the selfishness of their life the hus- band and wife forget the love they owe to the
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rest of the world. Real love is simply- the cohesive force of the spirit which draws the whole race together. That cohesive force I call God. God is simply love. That is what Christ tried to tell the world, but the churches have put another message in his mouth.
"Yes, yes, I know they say I have declared that marriage is a failure. That is nonsense. It is a failure when husband and wife fail to look upon mere passion as selfishness, and as the enemy of spiritual growth. From the worldly standpoint marriage ought to be a great success. Married life is the most eco- nomical life. A man stays at home instead of rioting abroad. I know that before I was mar- ried I was always in need of money, no matter how much my income was. In the very first month of my married life I found that I had more money than I really needed."
" Count Tolstoy," I said, " how do you define the soul as separate from the body during life ? There are faculties of the higher nature that can vanish. The doctors will explain it by telling you that a certain part of the brain is diseased. When the skull is opened after
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death they can show you the destroyed tissue."
" Lies ! lies ! lies ! " said Tolstoy, fiercely. I had struck him in a tender part. " The belief in doctors has reached the point of superstition. It is the fetich of the century. It used to be miraculous images; now it is doctors. Who verifies their statements? No one. People pre- tend to look at the evidence, but they don't."
" But if I knock you into unconsciousness, what becomes of the soul without the body ?"
"You might just as well ask me where my spirit is when my body is asleep. The soul is simply consciousness and love. It is personal- ity, not individuality. Identity may perish, but personality is indestructible. Consciousness of my being and love for my fellow-man are the substance; the body is only the shadow. If there is anything missing in the shadow, it must also be missing in the substance. The soul is related to the body in this thing only. If a man be paralyzed from head to foot and his consciousness remains, he is alive. If he can wink, he may communicate with others. If he be a king, and a man is brought before
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him for judgment, he can, with a movement of his eyelid, say whether life or death shall be the result. The soul is there complete, even though the body may be all but dead."
" And you think that the Christian world has rejected Christ? "
"The real Christ — yes. But men are grow- ing better, and the Christian idea of equality will in the end control."
"But there are some of Christ's teachings, which, if taken literally, can hardly be realized in our present social condition. Christ would have you set an unrepentant fallen woman at the table beside your wife and daughters."
"Why not?" said the Count. "Such a woman is the same in my eyes as my wife or daughters. She is simply unfortunate."
" You would not seat her at your table ? "
" I certainly would."
"What right have you to expose innocence and purity to the touch of vice ? What right have you to let your own flesh and blood run the risk of corruption ? "
"Modern Christians believe that human na- ture is evil," said the Count, " but the Chinese
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believe that human nature is good. In this I am Chinese. When good and evil are brought together on equal ground, the good must prevail. That is a law of the universe."
A moment later the giant had his arm around the neck of his golden-haired little son who had stolen into the room. And philosophy was ended for that day.
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CHAPTER VII
Tolstoy and his People
I HARDLY know how it came about, but early the next day I found myself flounder- ing along through the snow in moujik's boots with Tolstoy's eldest daughter. After a few minute's struggle through the whistling white storm we were in the actual village of Yasnia Poliana, a double row of straw-thatched huts on a dreary plain. The young Countess stepped around the monstrous drifts of snow with the grace and agility of a deer. Every peasant uncovered before her, and muttered a blessing.
We entered a hut, and a low chorus of wel- come greeted us. We were in the presence of that Russia for whose sake Tolstoy had aban- doned rank and wealth. A heavy-faced, hairy man — a deaf mute, who had once been a serf
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— sat at a table eating black bread. Two half- naked, rosy children sprawled playfully beside his plate. The black eyes of the peasant glis- tened with pleasure, and the lines in his face softened when he saw Tolstoy's daughter. His wife and daughter were weaving clothes for themselves. They stood up and curtsied.
Medicine for the baby. The little one swal- lowed it greedily. The pet lamb was brought out to bleat at the Countess's feet and lick her white hand. The sick sheep were in the bedroom.
We sat down in the dim hut and listened to the family joys and woes. The sheep were not breeding well, and the outlook was hard. Would the Countess come and look at the horse they had bought for thirty-five roubles, and give her opinion? We went into the stockade behind the hut, and the Countess examined the horse's teeth and feet. Ideas were exchanged, and advice given.
Then we trudged through the bitter storm to the big school hut. It was crowded with tousle- headed boys and girls chanting the Russian alphabet in every key, while a swarthy young man, plainly embarrassed by our presence, tried
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to awe the giggling scholars into silence by haughtily " eyeing them over." The little Count- ess had once been their teacher, and no one could frighten them in her presence; and she went from one to the other, examining their attempts at writing, patting their heads and commending good work. This school was sup- ported by Count Tolstoy, and his two daughters were the teachers until the Russian authorities refused to permit it any longer, lest the Count- esses might put liberal ideas into the children's minds.
As we walked back through the desolate street, we were invited into another hut. A blind, white-haired woman and her two fat but pretty daughters sat at their spinning wheels, in the rude glory of embroidered peasant costumes. A letter from a relative had arrived. Would the Countess read it to them ? Of course she would. The fair young girl, with the snow still sparkling on her skirt and boots, seated herself in the midst of them, and began to read the coarse scrawlings, nodding now at one and now at another, as references were made to different members of the family.
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It was all so simple, so genuine. She sat there like a peasant among peasants, sharing the sorrows and perplexities and humors of their lives.
I had seen the Russia of Tolstoy.
And when we went back to the house, the Count took me with him for a long walk. The storm had died away, and the snowflakes drifted lightly through the air. A distant tinkle of sleighbells sounded over the frozen stretches.
When Tolstoy goes out for his daily walk he dresses like any simple peasant, and I could hardly realize that the rough Colossus striding along so swiftly beside me in the deep snow was the high priest of Russian letters.
"You newspaper writers are an irreverent tribe," he said.
The statement being true, I made no reply. Presently the Count forgot the subject.
" You have a Colonel Ingersoll in America," he said, as we descended through a little copse of birch trees, "a loose talker who has said some foolish words. He argues that Christ's Sermon on the Mount is not practical when applied to our present industrialism. I am
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strongly tempted to write a book on this man's shallow teachings. He is an ignoramus. He talks as if industrialism were a law instead of a product of human activity which can be changed. The truth is, that the whole system of compulsion is wrong. Every enemy of human liberty relies upon it. No man should be compelled to do anything against his will. In my new work I intend to quote Thomas Jefferson's declaration that the least govern- ment is the best government. He might have gone a step forward, and said that no govern- ment at all is better still."
"That suggests socialism."
" I know it does."
" You will find Thomas Jefferson a poor wit- ness for a socialistic argument."
" And you don't believe in socialism ? " asked the Count.
" No. The American idea is to throw as much responsibility as possible on the indi- vidual and so develop individual character instead of merging individuality into the mass of society. Americans as a whole believe that when you try to level man you level downward,
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not upward. But Americans also hold that society must wield certain enumerated powers of government, in order to restrain the ruthless and the lawless."
" Lawless ? Why should there be any laws ? "
"Because without them contracts could not be enforced nor individual rights guarded."
" And why should contracts be enforced ? When a man does not wish to do a thing, why should he be forced to do it?"
"Otherwise great human enterprises could not be prosecuted," I answered.
" But why should these great enterprises be carried on by force ? "
" Because — even looking at things from your own standpoint — railways, and bridges, and ships, and telegraphs, bring men closer together, and hasten the day when the whole world will be simply one big family."
The Count strode through the snow in silence.
" There is something in that. Anything that brings us men's thoughts is good."
" Without the printing press I could not have
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known your teachings in New York, six thou- sand miles away."
" True ; but mankind has lost the true path, and it would be better to go backward and find the right way of life — the way of love — than to build bridges. Without human slavery the pyramids of Egypt could not have been built. What of it ? We can do without the pyramids, but we cannot do without human liberty. I saw a terrible thing in the city of Toula. I went there to look after the son of my shoemaker friend who is an apprentice, and I found that he was working from six o'clock every morning until twelve o'clock every night. Shoes are useful, but it is better to go barefooted than to spoil boys. If we can have the great enter- prises you speak of without violating the law of love, let them be continued, otherwise let them stop. It is better to live as the peasants live here and follow in the footsteps of Christ, than to build up vast systems of material wealth at the expense of the spiritual life."
" Did you ever hear of the Irish soldier who insisted that the only man in the regiment who was in step was himself ? " I said.
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The tall Count was wading through a danger- ous part of the road. He stopped and raised his hand.
" That is not my idea at all," he said. "What I object to is the way in which men argue to themselves to prove that their selfish and im- moral lives are based upon the teachings of Christ. The Master is not to be understood by any particular passage of His teachings. It is the spirit of His utterances as a whole that con- demns our civilization. Christ would be an out- cast among the Christians of the nineteenth century."
As we pressed forward into the high road, a splendid sleigh dashed past us, and a distin- guished-looking man clad in rich sables, a jewelled broach flashing in his scarf, lifted his fur cap and greeted Tolstoy with a marked air of deference.
" God bless you, brother," said the Count, simply.
Presently two trembling old men, in weather- stained sheepskin coats, and dirty felt boots, came creeping along the road, arm in arm. They were pilgrims on their way to the shrines
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of holy Moscow, weary and wretched. They stopped a few feet before us and, crossing them- selves, uncovered and saluted the Count as a brother peasant.
" God bless you, brothers," said Tolstoy, bar- ing his head. Then he took them by the hand, and led them back to the house, while I followed slowly, contrasting in my mind the great men I had met in the capitals of the world with this mighty spirit that could reach out and lift sor- rowful, discouraged humanity — contrasting the Christianity of this barren, storm-swept Russian highway with the boulevards of Paris, with Piccadilly and with Broadway.
My wanderings have brought me to many scenes on the world's great highway, but I have never looked upon a more profoundly beautiful sight than that homeward walk.
We sat down to a rude dinner of vegetables spread over a long table resting on unpainted wooden trestles. It was a large room, bare of pictures or carpets. A piano was the only sug- gestion of luxury. The hungry pilgrims sat between Tolstoy's daughters. A slice of meat was placed before me. The Count
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referred to it as " that corpse," and I pushed it away.
" And so you don't eat meat ? "
" No/' said the Count ; " there is no reason why we should kill innocent animals when we can live just as well on vegetables. It is needless cruelty."
" But you chop down trees," I suggested. " A tree has life. It breathes through its leaves, drinks through its roots, has sap-blood flowing in its veins and a bark skin. We know by the ivy and the sensitive plant that vege- tables can even think. How do you know that you do not inflict the most terrible pain when you cleave a tree with your axe ? "
The Count sighed and turned his great face away.
"It may be so," he said; "but I know that a sheep is less sensitive than a man, a flea less sensitive than a sheep, and a tree less sensitive than a flea. I must grade my actions propor- tionately. It is necessary to fell a tree; it is unnecessary to kill a sheep."
When the dinner was cleared away and the lamps were lit in the room where many a pilgrim
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has eaten and praised God, we gathered at a round table, where Tolstoy's wife and daughters knitted warm wraps for the peasants, and his three-year-old son danced a Russian dance when his father grimly refused to play " Puss in the corner." On one side of the table was the Countess Tolstoy, stately and beautiful, and on the other side sat the Count, his powerful features standing out in the dim light like bronze. Outside, the storm lashed the tops of the trees, and drifted the snow against the huts of the peasants. A broken-legged dog whined on the staircase.
It was then that I heard from the Countess of her plan for an audience with Alexander III. She hoped to soften the rigor of the brutal cen- sorship that had turned her husband away from his art. I have since learned that her appeal to the Emperor was in vain. She begged him to relax the severity of the censors who had suppressed all that was splendid or vital in her husband's writings, in their blind effort to crush out liberalism. The Countess reminded her sovereign that Catherine the Great had made her reign glorious in history by drawing
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around her the great writers of her time, instead of alienating them from the court. Alexander listened patiently to the eloquent woman who had come from dreary Yasnia Poli- ana, strong in the righteousness of her cause, and believing that her entreaty would meet with a broad and generous response. She forgot that the spirit of progress was buried in the grave of Alexander II., and that the ascendency of Pobiedonostseff, the narrow- souled procurator-general of the Holy Synod, over the mind of his successor had destroyed all hope of reform. The Emperor heard her arguments as he heard the honest voice of Loris Melikoff pleading for a constitutional government, and he set his face against tolera- tion. It is not too much to say that the failure of Tolstoy to write the last great novel which he planned was due to the inflexible opposition of the Czar.
Those who blame Tolstoy for his too literal Christianity, should see his surroundings, and then they may comprehend the stages by which he arrived at his present point of view. He is honest and sane. Even in the harshest
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periods of his austere life he has seemed to be happy. No one familiar with the facts can doubt that, however erratic his course has been, he has aroused in the thinking people of Russia a partial sense of the social, industrial, and polit- ical iniquities against which his peasant life has been a standing protest. I have told the story of his union with and separation from the Greek church, but I have not told all. There are other details which do not belong to the public, but which would help to explain the life of this extraordinary man.
While we talked together that night Tolstoy told me that he could never give up his idea that physical labor was a duty imposed upon every man, and that he would continue until his dying day to plough in the field, and to make shoes, no matter what society might say. He illustrated his labor creed by quoting the words of Timothy Michailovitch Bondareff, the Russian peasant whose interdicted book was made known to the world by the Count : —
" You may give all the treasures in the world to purchase a child, but it will not then be your own. It never has been yours and never can
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be. It belongs only to its own mother. It is the same with the question of food. A man may neglect the duty of laboring for bread; he may buy a loaf with money. But that loaf still belongs to the person whose labor earned it. For, even as a woman cannot purchase motherhood with money, nor in any other way, so a man ought, by the work of his own hands, to procure the necessary food for his own sub- sistence and that of his wife and children. He cannot elude the obligation by any means, what- ever may be his rank or merit."
Here, then, was the secret of Tolstoy's life — love and labor. He worked four hours every day with his pen, but he also did his stint of manual toil. He went out among the down- trodden peasants, not only to preach the holi- ness of labor, but to share with them the satis- faction and dignity of producing wealth with his own hands. Imagine Shakespeare, or Goethe, or Dante, or Hugo, or Thackeray leading such a crusade in their declining years !
Through the mist of years that has gathered since I went to Yasnia Poliana I can look back
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and see Tolstoy reading BondarefF s will as though it were his own : —
" I will order my son not to bury me in the cemetery, but in the ground, which, cultivated by my arms, has furnished our daily bread. I will pray him not to fill my grave with clay or sand, but with fertile earth, and to leave no mound or anything to indicate the place of my burial. I will direct him to continue every year to sow the place with good wheat. Later this land may belong to some other cultivator, and in this manner they will gather the bread of life from my grave to the end of the world. Men will speak of my obsequies from century to century, and many laborers will follow my example. Perhaps some among you, O ye nobles and rich men, will also be interred in the earth where men sow their grain!"
The country round about Yasnia Poliana is hard and desolate. There is little to remind the peasants of the outside world except the visita- tions of the Imperial Government in search of recruits for the army. They live on from gen- eration to generation, sequestered from the fever- ish influences of modern civilization. Few of
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them understand Tolstoy. They know that he is a great author, and they have heard that the Emperor ordered him to live in the country be- cause he was a zealous champion of the common people and reviled the aristocracy. But I can- not believe that they suspect the tenderness and pity with which he regards them, And yet the pilgrims who are fed at his table and sheltered beneath his roof carry to all parts of the empire tales of Tolstoy's goodness, and the village shoemaker, who has worked side by side with him, declares that, although the Count makes poor shoes, he has made the young men proud to be laborers.
Since the preceding lines were written, the hierarchy of the Greek church has formally ex- communicated Count Tolstoy. Orthodox Chris- tianity has cursed and rejected the one modern man who has tried to follow literally in the foot- steps of Christ. And yet, when the intolerant bigots who struck his name from the Christian rolls are mouldering in forgotten graves, the influence of Lyoff Tolstoy's example and teach- ings will be a living influence in the world.
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CHAPTER VIII " The Butcher"
WHILE the Cuban Republic was still wandering in the tall grass, and God was leading Spain to destruc- tion over the well-worn path of tyranny, I had my first view of Captain-general Weyler in his Havana palace.
From the windows of the room in which we sat we could see the little church that covered the tomb of Columbus, whose ashes were soon to be carried back, under a furled and van- quished flag, to the land that sent him forth, four centuries before, with sword and cross, to carry the Spanish idea of Christianity into a new hemisphere.
It was a time of terror. The streets of Havana swarmed with spies, the dungeons of Morro Castle and the mighty Cabanas were crowded with Cuban patriots ; and the trampled grass between the colossal walls of the vener-
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able fortress was stained with the blood of insurgents murdered in public with all the outward surroundings of law. From one end of Cuba to the other came stories of massacre and pitiless persecution.
Yet the armies of Gomez, Garcia, and Maceo still held the field, the Cuban junta in Havana, under the very nose of the terrible Captain-general, continued to hold its secret sessions, and the American newspaper corre- spondents, treading the secret precincts of insurgent activity, in the shadow of the royal palace, saw to it that the lamp of American sympathy was kept trimmed and burning brightly.
How delicately balanced are the decisive events of history sometimes! There are days when the destiny of a nation may be influenced by the slightest breath.
At such a time I saw Captain-general Weyler, the most sinister figure of the nineteenth cen- tury. He was a short, broad-shouldered man, dressed in a general's uniform, with a blood-red sash wound around his waist. His head was too large for his body. The forehead was
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narrow, the nose and jaws prominent and bony ; the chin heavy and projecting. The sharp lower teeth were thrust out beyond the upper rows, giving the mouth a singular ex- pression of brutal determination. The eyes were gray and cold. The voice was harsh and guttural — a trace of his Austrian ances- try — and he jerked his words out in the curt manner of a man accustomed to absolute authority. It was a smileless, cruel face, with just a suggestion of treachery in the crows' feet about the eyes ; otherwise bold and masterful.
This was Don Valeriano Weyler, Marquis of Tenerife, the Spanish Captain-general, who had just ordered his army practically to exter- minate the Cuban nation, the fierce disciple of Cortez and Alva, at the mention of whose name the women and children of unhappy Cuba shuddered ; the incarnation of the surviv- ing spirit of mediaeval Europe, desperately struggling to retain a foothold in the western world. He was the guardian of the last rem- nant of Spanish authority in the hemisphere once controlled by Spain ; a worthy instrument
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to close the most unspeakable period of colonial government.
" You have set your hand to a difficult task," I ventured.
" We shall crush the insurgents like that," and the Captain-general closed his hand as though he were strangling something.
" It is hard to extinguish the republican spirit on this side of the Atlantic," I said. " It feeds on the air."
" I have two hundred thousand Spanish sol- diers and fifty generals," said Weyler. " If it were not for the encouragement of the Ameri- cans, the Cubans would lie down like whipped dogs."
It was the voice of the Middle Ages that spoke.
" Two hundred thousand troops against a few half-starved men ? " I said. " Isn't it strange that the struggle continues ? "
" No ! " — the jaws snapped viciously — " the Cubans are fighting us openly ; the Americans are fighting us secretly."
" How do you account for it ? "
The Captain-general stared at me and moved
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his jaws with an unpleasant chewing motion. Then he rose from his chair and paced the room. It is hard to convey an idea of the expression in his sullen eyes.
" The American newspapers are responsible," he cried with a sudden passion. " They poison everything with falsehood. They should be suppressed."
" But the American newspapers did not stir up Mexico and Peru and the other Spanish- American colonies to rebellion," I answered. " The American newspapers were not in exist- ence when the Netherlands fought against the Spanish crown for independence. It is the custom in these times to lay the blame for everything on the newspapers. The news- papers did not organize or arm the Cuban insurgents. Why are the Cubans fighting at all ? "
"Because they are lawless; because they hate authority."
" Who made them lawless ? Spain has con- trolled this island for four hundred years."
Weyler turned in a fury and struck the table with his fist.
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" Men like you," he snarled, "who excite rebellion everywhere — meddlesome scribblers."
"Your Excellency flatters me."
"Take care," he said, with a threatening frown. " I have a long arm. The penalty for trafficking with the insurgents is death ; do you understand that — death ! "
His teeth shone between his lips; his eyes were the eyes of an angry wolf.
" I understand ; but my death would not help the Spanish cause. There are a hundred other writers in New York eager to take my place."
At that moment the door opened. A small, pale man entered the room and laid some papers on Weyler's desk. The intruder gave me a sidewise glance. I recognized him. He was a spy of the Cuban insurgents, attached to the palace ; a shrewd, soft-footed, silent man. He withdrew as quietly as he came, and glanc- ing slyly over his shoulder at the Captain- general, whose back was turned, he raised his eyebrows and smiled.
" Remember," said Weyler, as I left him, " you will be watched in all that you do here. My eyes will be on you night and day."
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That night I was surprised by the sudden appearance of a New York correspondent who had incurred the death penalty by visiting the insurgent army. It was known that Weyler's spies were searching for him in every part of the island. He walked into the Hotel Ingla- terra, and sat down in the cafe among the chattering Spanish officers with a jaunty in- souciance that well became his daring char- acter.
" Nice evening," he remarked coolly, nodding to me across the table.
" Great God," I whispered, " don't you know — "
"Yes, I know," he answered quickly. "They're looking for me, but this is the last place they will expect to find me. Don't whis- per ; it will excite suspicion. I've dropped my identity for the present. I'm Mr. Brown - Mr. Brown, of New York — travelling about in search of a chance to make good invest- ments."
" How did you get here ? "
" Came down from Key West on the regular steamer."
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" But I thought you were hiding somewhere in Cuba."
" Not at all. I escaped from the island, but I couldn't keep away. To-morrow I'll start through the tall grass for the insurgent army, and I'll stay with it till the fight is won or the Cuban Republic is wiped out. Poor old Weyler! How mad he'll be when he reads my next despatches from Maceo's head- quarters."
It is doubtful whether the Captain-general ever realized the skill and coolness of some of the men who fought the battles of the Cuban Republic in the American press. They swarmed in his capital day and night; they wandered about, picking up rare old fans in the shops, gossiping with the officers in the restau- rants, listening to the Spanish military concerts in the broad Prado or the plaza, admiring the Cuban girls at the barred windows, and appar- ently leading lives of careless indolence; but never for an hour did they relax their vigilance, and when a correspondent disappeared myste- riously for an hour or two, he was sure to be shut up somewhere with an insurgent agent,
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listening to the latest news of the struggle for liberty.
' The Spanish army then retreated," wrote one correspondent.
" I can't pass that," growled the Spanish military censor. " I will not allow any one to cable such a statement. You must correct it."
"Right," said the correspondent. "I made a mistake."
Then he wrote, "The Spanish army ad- vanced gallantly rearward."
" Good ! " cried the Spaniard, whose knowl- edge of English was somewhat hazy. "That is the truth. Spanish soldiers never retreat."
Thus the game of life and death was played in old Havana ; and many a time the Spanish lion roared defiantly, unconscious of the fact that the despised correspondents had tied its tail in bowknots.
Weyler was simply the agent of a political theory that discontent should be cured by stern repression rather than by remedial legislation. It is a policy as old as the human race. It has always been a failure, but it springs up in every age. He did his work honestly and
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frankly. Cubans who refused to recognize Spanish authority must be killed. There were plenty to take their places.
I saw the Captain-general several times, and he was always the same stubborn tyrant. The newspapers were to blame for everything. They were the curse of civilized society. It would be better for the world if every editor and correspondent were shot.
The time had come to put Weyler to the test. In Campo Florida, a village eight miles distant from Havana, forty or fifty unarmed, peaceable Cubans had been dragged from their homes, and without accusation or trial, butchered on the roadside by order of the local military commander. This awful deed was simply an incident in Weyler's great plan for the restoration of peace by the mur- der of all persons suspected of giving aid to the insurgents. In order to keep up appear- ances, the officer who directed the uniformed assassins made an official report announcing a battle at Campo Florida, with an enumera- tion of the enemy's dead.
It was important to prove the responsibility
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of the Spanish crown for barbarities like these, and I made my way to Campo Florida at night. Guided by two patriotic Cubans, I found the place where the victims had been hurriedly buried. A few strokes of a spade uncovered the ghastly evidences of murder. The .hands of the slain Cubans were tied behind their backs. The sight revealed by -the flickering light of our lanterns would have moved the hardest heart. I made a vow in that . moment that I would help to extinguish Spanish sovereignty in Cuba, if I had to shed my blood for it. That vow was kept.
With a list of the murdered Cubans and all the circumstances of their death, I appeared once more before the Captain-general in his palace. The whole story was told. Weyler's dull eyes glittered dangerously. His lips grew white.
"Well," he said, when I had finished, "what do you come to me for ? "
" You have declared that the American newspapers were responsible for the Cuban rebellion."
"Yes."
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" Come with me and see the real cause of the war. I will show you men, supposed to have been killed in fair fight on the field, with their hands bound behind them. I will prove to you crimes against civilization committed by the Spanish army in the name of Spain."
" Lies ! vile lies ! The Cuban agitators have deceived you ! " cried Weyler.
"You have heard the simple truth. I have seen the victims with my own eyes."
"And you dare — "
"To tell the truth — yes. I dare not do anything else."
" I will expel you from the island."
" You may do that, but how will it help mat- ters ? I am a mere cog in a vast machine. I have come to you fairly and frankly with proofs of an almost incredible crime against humanity. If your only answer is a decree of exile, you will confess that the Spanish govern- ment is responsible."
The rage of the Captain-general whitened his face. It would be hard to imagine a more malignant countenance. The veins in his forehead swelled ; his hands twitched.
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" I will make an example of you," he roared.
" You may threaten me, but the power I represent is beyond any government; it is elemental in America."
" I will send you out of Cuba and you shall not return without the consent of the Spanish government."
" You can force me to go, but I will return some day without permission from Spain. Good day, sir."
" Good day."
And that was my last sight of the most monstrous personality of modern times until I saw him slouching through the streets of Madrid a week before the United States unsheathed the sword for Cuba. Weyler kept his word and made me an exile from Cuba. But I returned to the island just in time to take a Spanish flag with my own hand, and to see the smoking hulks of Cervera's fleet along the Cuban shore.
"Why did we allow Weyler to live?" re- peated the gray-haired Cuban leader. " Be- cause he was more useful to us alive than dead.
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Assassination ? No, no ! the time has gone when assassination could help any cause in the world. It is a fool's argument. A dozen patriots offered to kill the Captain-general and die with him. We could have destroyed him at almost any moment. But we would not stain our cause with murder. He little thought, when he issued his bloody commands, that we were always at his very elbow, always within striking distance. If we had assassinated Weyler, we would have lost the sympathy of the American people and destroyed our only chance for liberty and independence. There is nothing equal to patience in a fight against oppression."
It was a strange experience for a man exiled from Cuba as an enemy of Spain to stand before the Spanish Prime Minister in Madrid. Yet there I was. Don Canovas del Castillo was not only the actual head of the government, but the supreme political and moral leader of his people. His voice was the voice of the nation. It was he who seated the
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reigning dynasty on the throne, and his hand wrote the constitution of the monarchy.
He looked like an old lion as he sat in his splendid audience room, under Velasquez's matchless portraits of Philip IV. and Louis XIV. in their childhood, his dark eyes flashing beneath his massive forehead and shaggy, white brows. No one could have looked upon that strong, venerable face and heard that hard, steely voice, without knowing that Spain was ready to meet her fate, whatever it might be, and that Spanish pride was as unyielding and unreasonable as in the days of Charles V., when his sceptre swayed Europe.
"My government will not yield an inch to force or to threats of force," he said. " Spain will make no concession until the insurrection in Cuba has been brought under control, and until we can give, of our own free will, what we refuse to allow any one to take, either by armed insurrection or by treasonable intrigue with other nations. Independent Cuba would mean a government dominated by negroes ; not such negroes as are to be found in the United States, but African negroes, African in every
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sense. Independent Cuba would mean civil war between whites and blacks ; it would mean fifty years of anarchy ; it would mean the destruction of the island and its commerce. Such a republic would be a menace to the peace of the United States. It would be worse than Hayti, far worse. Spain cannot under- take to be guided in her domestic affairs by any other government, nor can she allow any foreign agitation to influence her in dealing with her rebellious colony. We seek peace, but we will not shrink from war in any matter touching our honor. If the United States forces war upon Spain, we are ready to defend ourselves, but we are determined that Spain shall be the nation attacked, and not herself the aggressor. Spain will defend herself at all hazards. The question of the comparative strength of nations will not enter into the matter at all. We are ready to meet whatever the future holds for us."
That future, which the lionlike Premier chal- lenged so bravely, held death by assassination for him and a bloody defeat for his country.
When the mobs of Madrid were shrieking
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defiance to the United States in the Puerto del Sol, and the wild bulls furnished by the last descendant of Columbus were fighting to raise money for a warship to be used against the new-world champions of Cuba, I went with a friend to see the Escurial, that monastery- fortress where Philip II. retired to nurse his gouty leg after God and England had destroyed the Armada.
As we descended into the wonderful marble crypt which holds the dust of all the sovereigns of Spain, my companion uncovered and said: —
" Dead glory riseth never."
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CHAPTER IX Familiar Glimpses of Yellow Journalism
IT has been said by those calm students of human events who were untroubled by the cries of oppressed Cuba, that the war be- tween the United States and Spain was the work of the " yellow newspapers " — that form of American journalistic energy which is not content merely to print a daily record of history, but seeks to take part in events as an active and sometimes decisive agent.
That was a saying of high reproach when the armed struggle began and when Continental Europe frowned upon the American cause. " Yellow journalism " was blood guilty. It had broken the peace of the world. Its editors were enemies of society and its correspondents ministers of passion and disorder. Its lying clamors had aroused the credulous mob, over- thrown the dignified policies of government, and dishonored international law.
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But when the results of that conflict justified the instrumentalities which produced it, when the world accepted the emancipation of Cuba from the bloody rule of Spain as a glorious step in the progress of mankind, — then the part played by the newspapers was forgotten, and "yellow journalism" was left to sing its own praises; and its voice was long and loud and sometimes tiresome.
Little politicians arose and, with their hands on their hearts, acknowledged that they had done the thing and were willing to have it known of men. Heroes of a three months' war, who had faced the perils of tinned beef, bared their brows for the laurels of a grateful nation. The party in power at Washington solemnly thanked God that it had had the wisdom and courage to strike a blow for human liberty. The government's press censors in Cuba and the Philippines were instructed to suppress the attempts of indignant "yellow journalism " to call attention to its own deeds.
And yet no true history of the war which banished Spain from the western hemisphere and released the Philippine archipelago from
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her tyranny, can be written without an acknowl- edgment that whatever of justice and freedom and progress was accomplished by the Spanish- American war was due to the enterprise and tenacity of "yellow journalists," many of whom lie in unremembered graves.
As one of the multitude who served in that crusade of "yellow journalism," and shared in the common calumny, I can bear witness to the martyrdom of men who suffered all but death — and some, even death itself — in those days of darkness.
It may be that a desire to sell their news- papers influenced some of the " yellow editors," just as a desire to gain votes inspired some of the political orators. But that was not the chief motive; for if ever any human agency was thrilled by the consciousness of its moral responsibility, it was " yellow journalism " in the never-to-be-forgotten months before the out- break of hostilities, when the masterful Spanish minister at Washington seemed to have the influence of every government in the world behind him in his effort to hide the truth and strangle the voice of humanity.
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How little they know of " yellow journalism " who denounce it ! How swift they are to con- demn its shrieking headlines, its exaggerated pictures, its coarse buffoonery, its intrusions upon private life, and its occasional inaccura- cies ! But how slow they are to see the stead- fast guardianship of public interests which it maintains ! How blind to its unf earing warfare against rascality, its detection and prosecution of crime, its costly searchings for knowledge throughout the earth, its exposures of humbug, its endless funds for the quick relief of distress !
Some time before the destruction of the bat- tleship Maine in the harbor of Havana, the New York Journal sent Frederic Remington, the dis- tinguished artist, to Cuba. He was instructed to remain there until the war began ; for " yel- low journalism " was alert and had an eye for the future.
Presently Mr. Remington sent this telegram from Havana : —
"W. R. HEARST, New York Journal, N.Y. :
" Everything is quiet. There is no trouble here. There will be no war. I wish to return.
" REMINGTON." 177
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This was the reply : — 11 REMINGTON, HAVANA :
" Please remain. You furnish the pictures, and I'll furnish the war.
"W. R. HEARST."
The proprietor of the Journal was as good as his word, and to-day the gilded arms of Spain, torn from the front of the palace in San- tiago de Cuba, hang in his office in Printing House Square, a lump of melted silver, taken from the smoking deck of the shattered Span- ish flagship, serves as his paper weight, and the bullet-pierced headquarters flag of the Eastern army of Cuba — gratefully presented to him in the field by General Garcia — adorns his wall.
The incident which did more to arouse the sentimental opposition of the American people to Spain than anything which happened prior to the destruction of the Maine, was the rescue of the beautiful Evangelina Cisneros from a Havana prison by the JotirnaVs gallant corre- spondent, Karl Decker. There is nothing in fic- tion more romantic than this feat of " yellow journalism." And the events which led up to it are worth telling.
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One sultry day in August, 1897, the propri- etor of the Journal was lolling in his editorial chair. Public interest in Cuba was weak. The Spanish minister at Washington had drugged the country with cunningly compounded state- ments. The government was indifferent. The weather was too hot for serious agitation. Every experienced editor will tell you that it is hard to arouse the popular conscience in August. Perspiring man refuses to allow him- self to be worked into a moral rage. The pro- letariat of liberty was in a hole. The most tremendous headlines failed to stir the crowd.
An attendant entered the room with a tele- gram, which Mr. Hearst read languidly : —
" HAVANA.
" Evangelina Cisneros, pretty girl of seventeen years, related to President of Cuban Republic, is to be imprisoned for twenty years on African coast, for having taken part in uprising Cuban political prisoners on Isle of Pines."
He read it over a second time and was about to cast it on his desk — but no ! He stared at the little slip of paper and whistled softly. Then he slapped his knee and laughed.
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" Sam ! " he cried.
A tall, shaven, keen-eyed editor entered from the next room.
" We've got Spain, now ! " exclaimed Mr. Hearst, displaying the message from Cuba. " Telegraph to our correspondent in Havana to wire every detail of this case. Get up a peti- tion to the Queen Regent of Spain for this girl's pardon. Enlist the women of America. Have them sign the petition. Wake up our corre- spondents all over the country. Have distin- guished women sign first. Cable the petitions and the names to the Queen Regent. Notify our minister in Madrid. We can make a na- tional issue of this case. It will do more to open the eyes of the country than a thousand editorials or political speeches. The Spanish minister can attack our correspondents, but we'll see if he can face the women of America when they take up the fight. That girl must be saved if we have to take her out of prison by force or send a steamer to meet the vessel that carries her away — but that would be piracy, wouldn't it?"
Within an hour messages were flashing to
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Cuba, England, France, Spain, and to every part of the United States. The petition to the Queen Regent was telegraphed to more than two hundred correspondents in various Ameri- can cities and towns. Each correspondent was instructed to hire a carriage and employ what- ever assistance he needed, get the signatures of prominent women of the place, and telegraph them to New York as quickly as possible. Within twenty-four hours the vast agencies of " yellow journalism " were at work in two hemi- spheres for the sake of the helpless girl pris- oner. Thousands of telegrams poured into the Journal office. Mrs. Jefferson Davis, the widow of the Confederate President, wrote this appeal, which the Journal promptly cabled to the summer home of the Queen Regent at San Sebastian : —
"To HER MAJESTY, MARIA CRISTINA, Queen
Regent of Spain : —
" Dear Madam : In common with many of my countrywomen I have been much moved by the accounts of the arrest and trial of Sefiorita Evangelina Cisneros. Of course, at this great distance, I am ignorant of the full particulars
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of her case. But I do know she is young, de- fenceless, and in sore straits. However, all the world is familiar with the shining deeds of the first lady of Spain, who has so splendidly illus- trated the virtues which exalt wife and mother, and who has added to these the wisdom of a statesman and the patience and fortitude of a saint.
"To you I appeal to extend your powerful protection over this poor captive girl — a child almost in years — to save her from a fate worse than death. I am sure your kind heart does not prompt you to vengeance, even though the provocation has been great. I entreat you to give her to the women of America, to live among us in peace.
"We will become sureties that her life in future will be one long thank-offering for your clemency.
" Do not, dear Madam, refuse this boon to us, and we will always pray for the prosperity of the young King, your son, and for that of his wise and self-abnegating mother.
"Your admiring and respecting petitioner, "VARINA JEFFERSON DAVIS."
Then Mrs. Julia Ward Howe, author of the " Battle Hymn of the Republic," wrote this
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appeal to the Pope, which the Journal cabled to
the Vatican : — '
"To His HOLINESS, LEO XIII.:
" Most Holy Father: — To you, as the head of Catholic Christendom, we appeal for aid in behalf of Evangelina Cisneros, a young lady of Cuba, one of whose near relatives is concerned in the present war, in which she herself has taken no part. She has been arrested, tried by court martial, and is in danger of suffering a sentence more cruel than death — that of twenty years of exile and imprisonment in the Spanish penal colony of Ceuta, in Africa, where no woman has ever been sent, and where, besides enduring every hardship and indignity, she would have for her companions the lowest criminals and outcasts.
" We implore you, Holy Father, to emulate the action of that Providence which interests itself in the fall of a sparrow. A single word from you will surely induce the Spanish govern- ment to abstain from this act of military ven- geance, which would greatly discredit it in the eyes of the civilized world.
" We devoutly hope that your wisdom will see fit to utter this word, and to make not us alone, but humanity, your debtors.
" JULIA WARD HOWE."
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The mother of President McKinley signed a petition to the Queen Regent. The wife of Secretary of State Sherman gave her name to the appeal, and soon the most representative women of the nation joined the movement. Fifteen thousand names were cabled by the Journal to the palace of San Sebastian. The country began to ring with the story of Evange- lina Cisneros. Hundreds of public meetings were convened. The beautiful young prisoner became the protagonist of the Cuban struggle for liberty. Spain was denounced and the President was urged to lend his influence to the patriot cause of Cuba. The excitement grew day by day. It stirred up forces of sympathy that had lain dormant until then. The wily Spanish minister at Washington was in a trap. He did not dare to attack a movement sup- ported by the wives and daughters of the great leaders of every political party in the United States.
How we worked and watched for poor Cuba in those days! How the tired writers stuck to the fight in those hot, breathless nights ! And how the palace officials in Spain and the
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Captain-general in Cuba cursed us for our pains !
Presently there came a message from Cuba. Karl Decker had carried out his instructions. "Yellow journalism" had broken the bars of the Spanish prison. The beautiful young pris- oner was safe on the ocean and would be in New York in a few days.
Not only had the girl been lifted out of the prison window through the shattered iron bar- riers and carried from rooftop to rooftop in the night over a teetering ladder, but she had been secreted in Havana in spite of the frantic search of the Spanish authorities and, disguised as a boy, had been smuggled on board of a departing steamer under the very noses of the keenest detectives in Havana.
" Now is the time to consolidate public sen- timent," said Mr. Hearst. "Organize a great open-air reception in Madison Square. Have the two best military bands. Secure orators, have a procession, arrange for plenty of fire- works and searchlights. Announce that Miss Cisneros and her rescuer will appear side by side and thank the people. Send men to all
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the political leaders in the city, and ask them to work up the excitement. We must have a hundred thousand people, together that night. It must be a whale of a demonstration — some- thing that will make the President and Con- gress sit up and think."
Who, of all the countless multitude that wit- nessed that thrilling scene in Madison Square, knew the processes by which " yellow journal- ism," starting with that little message from Havana, had set in motion mighty forces of sympathy, which increased day by day, until Congress met, and the conscience of the na- tion found its official voice.
The time has not yet come when all the machinery employed by the American press in behalf of Cuba can be laid bare to the public. Great fortunes were spent in the effort to arouse the country to a realization of the real situation. Things which cannot even be referred to now were attempted.
It was my fortune to interview Canovas del Castillo, the Prime Minister of Spain, a few months before the outbreak of the war. As I had been exiled from Cuba — whither I had
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gone as a special correspondent for the New York World — by Captain-general Weyler, the experience in Madrid was doubly interesting.
"The newspapers in your country seem to be more powerful than the government," said the lion-headed Premier.
" Not more powerful, your Excellency, but more in touch with the real sovereignty of the nation, the people. The government is elected only once in four years, while the news- papers have to appeal to their constituents every day in the year."
If the war against Spain is justified in the eyes of history, then "yellow journalism" de- serves its place among the most useful instru- mentalities of civilization. It may be guilty of giving the world a lop-sided view of events by exaggerating the importance of a few things and ignoring others, it may offend the eye by typographical violence, it may sometimes pro- claim its own deeds too loudly ; but it has never deserted the cause of the poor and the downtrodden ; it has never taken bribes, — and that is more than can be said of its most conspicuous critics.
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One of the accusations against "yellow journalism " is that it steps outside of the legitimate business of gathering news and commenting upon it — that it acts. It is argued that a newspaper which creates events and thus creates news, cannot, in human nature, be a fair witness. There is a grain of truth in this criticism; but it must not be forgotten that the very nature of journalism enables it to act in the very heart of events at critical moments and with knowledge not possessed by the general public ; that what is every- body's business and the business of nobody in particular, is the journalist's business.
There are times when public emergencies call for the sudden intervention of some power outside of governmental authority. Then journalism acts. Let me give an instance.
When Admiral Camara was preparing to sail with a powerful Spanish fleet to attack Admiral Dewey in Manila Bay, two American monitors armed with ten-inch rifles were on their way across the Pacific to the Philippines. It was a perilous situation, more perilous than the American people were permitted to know.
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I have seen Admiral Dewey's letters to Con- sul General Wildman at Hong Kong, begging for news of the movements of the Spanish fleet and confessing that his squadron was too weak to meet it unless the two monitors should arrive in time. The threatened admiral made no secret of his anxiety. The question of victory or defeat or retreat depended on whether the Spanish fleet could be delayed until the powerful monitors had time to reach Manila.
In that critical hour, when the statesmen at Washington were denouncing "yellow journal- ism," I received the following message in the London office of the New York Journal: —
NOTE. — The letter is reproduced on the next page.
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NEW YORK JOURNAL
W. R. HEARST.
Dear Mr. Creelman:-
I wish you would at once make preparations so that in case the Spanish fleet actually starts for Manila we can buy some big English steamer at the eastern end of the Uediterranean and take her to some part of the Suez Canal where we can then sink her and obstruct the passage Of the Spanish warships. This must be done if the American monitors sent from San Francisco have not reached Dewey and he should be placed in a critical posi- tion by the approach of Camera's fleet. I understand tbat If a British vessel were taken into the canal and sunk under the circumstances outlined above, the British. Government would not allow her to be blown up to clear a passage and it might take time enough to raise her to put Dewey in a safe position.
Yours very truly,
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Camara's fleet left Spain to attack Dewey and actually entered the Suez Canal; but the sinking of a steamer in the narrow channel was made unnecessary by the sudden abandon- ment of the expedition and the return of the Spanish admiral to the threatened coast of Spain.
One does not have to be a great lawyer to understand that the obstruction of the Suez Canal could not have been undertaken by any responsible representative of the American government without a grave breach of inter- national law. Nor was there any existing private agency that could so well undertake such a costly and serious patriotic service as a newspaper whose correspondents kept it in almost hourly touch with the changing facts of the situation. I will not attempt to defend this contemplated deed as a matter of law. It needs no defence among Americans. The facts are given as an illustration of the part which the journalism of action is beginning to play in the affairs of nations, and the vary- ing methods employed.
But journalism that acts is no new thing,
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although it is beginning to act on new lines. The London Times defended Queen Caroline against the persecutions of George IV. and was denounced as a vulgar meddler. The same newspaper, after compelling the recall of Lord Raglan from the command of the British forces in the Crimea, forced Lord Aberdeen's ministry to resign. That was " yellow journal- ism," and John Walter was bitterly assailed for his sensationalism. Again, in 1840, the Times went beyond the orthodox frontier of journalism and, at enormous risk and expense, exposed gigantic frauds, saving millions of dollars to the merchants of London. A marble tablet over the entrance of the Times office records the gratitude of the people of the British metropo- lis. The New York Herald sent Stanley to find Livingstone in Africa, and equipped the Jeannette expedition to search for the North Pole. The New York Times smashed the great Tweed Ring, which had plundered and defied the public for years. The New York World averted a national disgrace by providing a pedestal for the Statue of Liberty presented by the people of France. The same