ts really
directing power, will forever remain a blot on her history.

About Japan's motives and methods I do not think it necessary to write.
American public opinion will hardly need any enlightenment on this
subject. America forced Japan out of the isolation in which she had
lived during centuries. I hope the day may not come when she will wish
that she had not done so.

The issues of the war stand in relation to its causes and the same
attempts have been made to distort and falsify them in the eyes of the
American public. I have seen it stated in a New York paper that this war
is a fight between civilization and barbarism, and I have seen a member
of the present English Cabinet quoted as having said that the issue was
one between militarism and freedom, civilization and freedom standing,
of course, in both cases on the side of our enemies.

Not a War for Civilization.

More idiotic rot--excuse the expression--I have never read in my life.
What has civilization to do with Servia's murderous plotting against
us? What with Russia's desire to shield her from the consequences
of her aggressions and to demonstrate to the world that we are of
no account in the Balkans and to establish her own--more or less
veiled--protectorate there? And if the case of civilization is advanced
by Japan's ousting Germany from Kiao-Chau, why should it not be equally
furthered if Japan did the same to England in Hongkong, Singapore, or,
if the opportunity offered, in India itself? And a person must be indeed
at his wits' end for arguments to proclaim Russia as a standard bearer
of freedom in her war against us. Compare her treatment of Poles, Finns,
Ukrainanians (small Russians) and Hebrews with the freedom which the
different nationalities enjoy in our empire! And England herself. Is it
for freedom's sake that she holds Gibraltar and that she subjugated the
Boers?

No! Civilization and freedom have nothing to do with the issues at stake
now, least of all in the sense that our enemies have drawn the sword for
their cause. It is a war for conquest and supremacy stirred up by all
the hateful passions in human nature, fully as much as any war that has
ever been waged before. But we did not stir it up. We are fighting for
our existence, right and justice are on our side, and so we trust will
victory be.

The causes of the war are clear. To make its issues still clearer,
imagine for a moment and merely for argument's sake the consequences