p. 11 | What Japan Did Not Do

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Aug 4, 1909

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 36, No. 30.

What Japan Did Not Do

HON. FRANK A. HOSMER, now a representative in the Massachusetts Legislature, a resident of Hawaii during her late revolution, declares that there is a strong feeling among the Japanese against America over two things: First, in regard to the treaty of Portsmouth, Japan feels that she did not receive her due from Russia, and this is laid largely to the door of this government. Secondly, Mr. Hosmer tells us, and he seems to present good evidence to that effect in the New York “World” of July 16, that when the Hawaiian Queen Liliuokalani was deposed and the provisional government instituted, Japan designed to seize the islands, and was prevented only by the prompt action of United States Minister John L. Stevens, who, we are told, declared a United States protectorate. Previous to this, Japan, seeing that the Hawaiian government would soon fall, had sent to Hawaii not less than 20,000 soldiers as laborers in the sugar plantations; that when the government fell these laborers forsook the plantations and came into Honolulu; that at that very time two Japanese war-ships appeared in the harbor, one the “Naniwa,” under the command of Captain Togo, who afterward became the famous Admiral Togo; and that the “Naniwa” was loaded with guns and ammunition for the Japanese soldier-laborers. Mr. Hosmer, who was connected with the Provisional Government, declares that there was abundant proof of this, and that the only thing which thwarted Japan’s project was the prompt and decisive action of Minister Stevens.

That action, together with the hearty support of the English and German residents of the islands, was an opposition so large that Commander Togo did not dare to risk the encounter. It would doubtless have been successful at the time, but it would have involved Japan in trouble with this country, and perhaps England and Germany. He therefore departed. Japan still wants the islands, and wishes to get even with the United States. Mr. Hosmer thinks, however, that there is no immediate danger of trouble.

Yet Japan is preparing for war. One world traveler, just into San Francisco, says that “the Japanese in every village in their own country have a military fever, and wherever you travel you see small squads of them drilling.” All nations are preparing for the great war of Armageddon foretold in the “sure word of prophecy.”