Evening Republican, Volume 16, Number 263, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 November 1912 — NOGI’S DEATH A DUTY [ARTICLE]

NOGI’S DEATH A DUTY

NOT ACT OF SACRIFICE, AS THE WEST REGARDS IT. Neither Was It a Rebuke to Changed Conditions, at Has Been Implied —Deed Will Long Be Remembered In Japan. Life in Japan is much more a state of mind than in the west, where materialism governs and sentiment does not go much beyond the first verae of a song. So when Gen. Count Nogi chose to escort his emperor to the shades, it called forth a mixed admiration, with the practical thought that great men would be untrue to say this view has no standing In Japan. It has. But beyond and behind It is an idea of duty that cannot be matched In the west It is truly the scriptural precept that no higher sacrifice can be made than to lay down one’s life. This has nothing to do with the heroism of the moment that acts quickly in moments of peril with us. There is less of that In Japan. It Is instead the deliberately calculated sacrifice, rare on this side of the earth, and In which the Japanese finds the greatest solace for his pride. Pride rules Japan. The Samurai and their lords came doyn to the people; the people did not go up when the great change came with the era just ended by Mutsuhito’s death. So pride leavened the mass and its Influence prevails as much as when the two-sword men forced manners by menace upon the common herd. To explain that General Nogi killed himself as a rebuke to changed conditions does not seem correct. Pride Impelled him. He would not linger beyond the era to which he gave glory and through which he gained fame. Better to depart in splendor and in great company than to linger only to be pointed at! To say a member of the military caste in Japan should kill himself as a rebuke to modern ways of wealthgetting is rather absurd. The great generals drew regular percentages upon supplies sent to their command. Gen. Prince Yamagata, first of the elder statesmen, amassed a fine fortune from this source during the war with Russia, and Gen. Prince Katsura had his share. There was no shame or secrecy about their transactions. It was part of the system of rewards. But when next summer and other summers come and the feast of the dead is celebrated along the shores of the beautiful Lake Biwa, near Kyoto and its imperial tomb, the peasants will remember the emperor and his escort when at dusk the sails of the little lantern-lft boats are set to bear the souls of* the dead hack to their uncharted shore, and the people will whisper to each other the story of the general who would not let his commander depart alone. —By the Author of “Surface Japan.”