The Imperial Cruise

by James Bradley

  ROOSEVELT VIEWED JAPAN’S TAKEOVER of Korea as a progressive social experiment. For the first time in history, an Asian nation was making a serious attempt—complete with international lawyers and a huge military-industrial complex—to assume The White Man’s Burden. And Roosevelt was eager to help, believing that Japanese conquest would benefit millions of Asians.

  At the turn of the century, Britain was suffering a number of imperial crises. Rebellions in Burma, Siam, Afghanistan, Tibet, Egypt, the Sudan, the Ottoman Empire, Venezuela, Samoa, and South Africa all required British military action. By 1901, Lord Henry Lansdowne, the new foreign secretary, had developed a new strategy based on ententes and alliances. This was especially important in North Asia, where Britain had no land forces to counter the Russians.

  Japanese leaders supported the Anglo-American Open Door policy* but their embrace of Anglo-Saxon ideals was born of strategic necessity. Britain’s and the United States’ motivation was the Open Door in China, and Japan’s was to expand into Korea. Joint opposition to Russia was a means to an end.

  * * *

  SOON AFTER ROOSEVELT ASCENDED to the presidency, Tokyo shocked the world when it announced that Japan had signed a treaty with the mightiest White power of all—Great Britain. The terms of the 1902 Anglo-Japanese Treaty upheld the Anglo-Saxon Open Door policy, recognized Japan’s “special interests” in Korea, and placed Britain on Japan’s side in a potential conflict with the Slav. If any nation became allied with Russia during a war with Japan, the treaty stated, Britain would enter the war on Japan’s side. Russia could thus no longer count on help from Germany or France if hostilities broke out. This meant that the next time Japan set foot on the Asian continent, it would not suffer another “Shame of Liaodong.” One New York newspaper described the treaty as “a shaft aimed at Russia.”18

  In contrast to Great Britain, the other Anglo-Saxon power was an isolationist country that shunned imperial power treaties, with a constitution that required its Senate to shine its examining light on all agreements. But in the White House sat a young president who planned to use his “little Jap” allies to enlighten Asia and wedge the Open Door even wider.

  On April 23, 1903, Secretary of State John Hay wrote to President Roosevelt, “We could never get a treaty through the Senate the object of which was to check Russian aggression.”19 Hay said two days later that the American public was only dimly aware of America’s interests in North Asia: “I am sure you will think it out of the question that we should adopt any scheme of concerted action with England and Japan which would seem hostile to Russia. Public opinion in this country would not support such a course, nor do I think it would be to our permanent advantage.”20 Big Stick Teddy responded in frustration, “The bad feature of the situation from our standpoint is that as yet it seems that we cannot fight to keep Manchuria open. I hate being in the position of seeming to bluster without backing it up.”21

  Czar Nicholas II of Russia believed it was his destiny to control North Asia and he dismissed the Japanese as makaki, or “little Jap monkeys.” Hoping to forestall any bloodshed, Japan suggested an exchange: if Japan could have Korea, Russia could have Manchuria. In response, Nicholas ignored the little monkeys and moved thirty thousand more troops east. A Japanese newspaper complained, “A peaceful solution of the Manchurian question through indecisive diplomatic measures and humiliating conditions is meaningless. This is not what our nation wants.”22 On January 21, 1904, the American minister to Japan, Lloyd Griscom, warned from Tokyo: “The Japanese nation is now worked up to a high pitch of excitement…. Nothing but the most complete backdown by the Russian government will satisfy the public feeling.”23

  Roosevelt was so eager to see the Japanese initiate their mission of civilization that one month before the war broke, he boasted that he “would not hesitate to give Japan something more than moral support against Russia.”24 But Big Stick Teddy knew that he’d have to get permission from Congress to use military force in North Asia, something they almost certainly wouldn’t authorize. Roosevelt could only watch from afar as his Japanese allies prepared to advance the cause of civilization.

  On February 1, 1904, William Howard Taft became secretary of war, after Elihu Root resigned and returned to his remunerative Manhattan law practice. Roosevelt’s wife, Edith, complained that Taft was “too much of a yes-man,” but as Roosevelt became more secretive in his dealings, he disliked consulting experts who might disagree.25 The whole idea was that Big Bill would be an “assistant president” who would always agree with his boss.

  Roosevelt was already effectively serving as his own secretary of state as elderly John Hay declined in health. Now, having gathered the powers of the State and War departments into his own young hands, Roosevelt would shape America’s reaction to history’s largest armed conflict prior to World War I.

  ON FEBRUARY 4, 1904, the prime minister of Japan, Taro Katsura, assembled his somber cabinet before Emperor Meiji and the founding fathers. Katsura reported that Japan had tried to work things out with Russia regarding Korea but that the Russians wouldn’t negotiate seriously.

  The founding fathers were not optimistic. Japan was much weaker than the Russian Bear, with only one hundred eighty thousand army troops compared to Russia’s 1.1 million men. The Russians had nine battleships and five armored cruisers in the Pacific, compared to the Japanese navy’s six battleships and six armored cruisers. The army figured it had an even chance against the Russians while the navy believed it might destroy the Russian fleet at the cost of half of the Japanese fleet. No one would assure Meiji of victory. But they reasoned that even if a war with Russia ended in a draw, it would still vault Japan into the White Christian power club. The Japanese ambassador to the United States, Takahira Kogoro, had already let Tokyo know that Roosevelt felt that Japan’s plans constituted a wise course, which would meet the sympathy of the civilized world.

  When Commodore Matthew Perry had kicked open Japan’s closed doors, it caused a chain reaction now in play like balls on a pool table. Japan had been advised by General LeGendre in the 1870s to “act courageously for the purpose of pushing forward the flag of the rising Sun in Asia and for the sake of the expansion of our empire… [and] to become the protector of the various nations in Asia…. This policy resembles the one taken by the United States.”26

  Now was the time. On February 6, 1904, Japan broke relations with Russia. Roosevelt wrote privately, “The sympathies of the United States are entirely on Japan’s side, but we will maintain the strictest neutrality.”27

  IN SEOUL, THE NOW Emperor Gojong (desiring to keep up with the imperial Joneses, he had recently declared Korea an “empire”) watched Japan’s moves with trepidation. Britain was allied with Japan, but in Washington sat Elder Brother Roosevelt. Roosevelt’s minister in Seoul was Horace Allen, Emperor Gojong’s favorite Elder Brother, and Allen led Gojong to believe “that the United States would indeed exercise good offices in accord with the treaty of 1882 should the occasion arise.”28

  The historical record is silent on whether the Americans ever warned the emperor what the Roosevelt Corollary meant for Korea. Roosevelt had written that “impotent” countries were legitimate prey for the civilized nations. In the dark, the Koreans had no idea what was about to happen. As war clouds gathered, a court official in Seoul assured a Western reporter: “We have the promise of America. She will be our friend whatever happens.”29

  To project their military power onto the Asian continent, the Japanese navy would first have to capture ports where they could land army troops. The best two harbor cities were Port Arthur, the Russian fortress on the tip of the Liaodong Peninsula, and Incheon, Korea, with a port that harbored warships from a number of countries, including Russia.

  On February 8, 1904—with no declaration of war—Japanese torpedo boats surprised Russian ships at Port Arthur and Incheon. The Russians denounced the Japanese move as a shameful violation of international law, but Americans were delighted. Oscar Straus, later Teddy
’s secretary of commerce and labor, wrote the president, “Japan is certainly battling on the side of civilization—may Wisdom and Victory be on her side.”30 Elihu Root gushed to Teddy, “Was not the way the Japs began the fight bully?”31 Roosevelt wrote his son, “I was thoroughly well pleased with the Japanese victory, for Japan is playing our game.”32

  Roosevelt’s ideas about civilization and barbarism blinded him to the obvious: Japan’s advances on the Liaodong and Korean peninsulas were the opening moves in Japan’s expansion into all of Asia. The president believed that his Honorary Aryans would play America’s game as loyal promoters of Anglo-Saxon ideals in Asia. He never imagined that the surprise-attack tactics he praised in 1904 would later bedevil another President Roosevelt. (As he planned the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor, the Japanese navy admiral Isoroku Yamamoto would write, “We have much to learn from the Russo-Japanese War…. Favorable opportunities were gained by opening the war with a sudden attack on the main enemy fleet.”)33

  At Port Arthur, Japanese and Russian troops set in for a long siege. At Incheon, the Japanese navy quickly bested the surprised Russians, and Japanese army troops marched on to Seoul. Korean leaders were forced at gunpoint to accept an “alliance” with Japan.

  The Japanese legation in Washington subsequently informed the Roosevelt administration that Korea was merely “allied” with Japan. In fact, Japan now had the right to station troops anywhere in Korea, controlled Korean officials, and even had veto power over Korea’s relations with other nations.

  The Russo-Japanese Land War

  The Russo-Japanese War was fought on neither Russian nor Japanese territory, but rather was a contest to determine which country would dominate Korea and China.

  As the Russo-Japanese War erupted, Roosevelt took action to ensure that Japan would not suffer another “Shame of Liaodong.” He immediately notified Germany and France that if they assisted Russia, “I should promptly side with Japan and proceed to whatever length was necessary on her behalf.”34

  Chapter 8

  THE JAPANESE MONROE DOCTRINE FOR ASIA

  “Japan is the only nation in Asia that understands the principles and methods of Western civilization. She has proved that she can assimilate Western civilization, yet not break up her own heritage. All the Asiatic nations are now faced with the urgent necessity of adjusting themselves to the present age. Japan should be their natural leader in that process, and their protector during the transition stage, much as the United States assumed the leadership of the American continent many years ago, and by means of the Monroe Doctrine, preserved the Latin American nations from European interference, while they were maturing their independence.”1

  —PRESIDENT THEODORE ROOSEVELT TO BARON KENTARO KANEKO, JULY 8, 1905

  The founding fathers of Japan had long monitored the Western media and had successfully crafted a positive image of Japan as different from other Asian countries. Now in 1904 the Japanese Foreign Ministry converted their embassies into public-relations bureaus, blitzing Western capitals with stories of how dashing Japanese warriors were, how the Japanese Red Cross respected Russian prisoners, and how Japan was battling for world civilization and the maintenance of the Anglo-American Open Door.

  Japan had already cemented a treaty with one Anglo-Saxon country—Britain—and now Tokyo sought the other. The founding fathers searched their ranks for a Japanese man who had been educated in the United States, who spoke American English, and who knew the American political, social, and financial scenes. Above all, Tokyo’s wise men sought someone who could roll the Rough Rider in the White House.

  Baron Kentaro Kaneko was the man chosen to woo America. Kaneko was a disciple of the leading founding father, Hirobumi Ito. After the Meiji Restoration, Kaneko was one of the first Japanese students sent abroad. He studied law under the famous lawyer Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. at Harvard, during the same time Roosevelt was an undergraduate there, and was awarded a law degree in 1878.

  Baron Kaneko was exactly the type of guy to appeal to the patrician president: he was well born, a titled aristocrat, a Harvard lawyer, a mannered gentleman in tie and tails, a paramount representative of an aggressively militarized society, and a suave speaker who had mastered the language of civilization. The New York Times reported from Tokyo that Kaneko had been appointed by the founding fathers as a special envoy “to explain Japan’s position to America.”2

  Teddy was quickly enamored with the new emissary. Some of his affection resulted not from an honest assessment of Kaneko—the Tokyo-based American minister, Lloyd Griscom, had warned Teddy that Kaneko was a lightweight.3 But Kaneko had been born into a samurai family, the caste atop Japanese society, the exalted warriors of yore who had nurtured Japan’s barbarian virtues. During the Tokugawa “Great Peace,” the samurai had become the leaders of Japan in government, business, and academia. Thus, to Teddy, Kaneko was much like himself: a highborn inheritor of barbarian virtues, a Harvard man, literate and articulate, civilized and ready to charge the hill.

  KANEKO TOOK THE COUNTRY by storm. In San Francisco his appearance garnered column after column of newspaper ink. In Chicago, he lectured at the Harvard Club and Northwestern University. In New York, he explained to fifteen Manhattan newsmen that Japan was fighting Russia in the cause of Anglo-Saxon civilization. On April 2, the Supreme Court justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. threw a glittering dinner party at his Washington home for his former protégé. At George Washington University, Kaneko spoke of the similarities between the constitutions of the United States and Japan, a lecture reprinted in the Century Magazine. Back in Manhattan, he gave a speech to Wall Street’s barons at the University Club and at a private dinner at the home of Roosevelt’s friend Oscar Straus.4 At Harvard, President Charles William Eliot introduced the baron as a renaissance man astride Occidental and Oriental cultures: “Kentaro Kaneko, Harvard bachelor of laws, formerly chief secretary of the Imperial House of Peers in Japan, Minister of agriculture and commerce, life member of the House of Peers, the type of those scholars of two hemispheres through whom West would welcome East to share in the inheritance of Hebrew religion, Greek art, Roman law, and nineteenth century science.”5

  Baron Kaneko told a new generation of Harvard sun-followers that the Japanese “are yellow in skin, but in heart and mind we are as white as Europeans and Americans…. Our hearts beat just as much as Christian hearts—the civilized heart is the same the world over.” In closing, he warned that if Japan doesn’t defeat Russia, “the open-door policy is lost and the Anglo-American civilization will never take root.”6 The Boston Herald printed Kaneko’s speech and it was then reprinted into six thousand small booklets.7

  Baron Kaneko’s most important assignment was to influence Theodore Roosevelt. Teddy most likely would have been bewildered by most Japanese, who ate rice with chopsticks, sat on the floor, and soaked nude in hot tubs. But Baron Kaneko was the very picture of an Americanized Honorary Aryan, and he would soon sweep Roosevelt off his feet.

  The subsequent Roosevelt-Kaneko talks—kept secret and lasting for nineteen months—would prove disastrous for the United States. Roosevelt was far out of his league, with almost no understanding of Asia. In the Japanese founding fathers, Roosevelt was dealing with the world’s most successful non-White, non-Christian revolutionaries. And—at the height of his Big Stick period—he sought no advice nor risked disagreement by explaining himself to his State Department or Congress.8

  Kaneko knew that Americans such as Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft believed that Aryans had journeyed west out of Central Asia. Kaneko crafted a complimentary myth about those ancients who went east at the same time, who would now join hands with the Aryans of the West. In Kaneko’s telling, the Himalaya mountains were

  the fountain head of the two great waves of human energy [which created] all our enlightened modern civilization. From the western slopes there began… that Aryan march which established its dominion over the whole of Europe and flowered into Occidental civilization. From
the mountain’s eastern sides there flowed that slower but no less profound tide which we know as orientalism…. After the visit of Commodore Perry, in 1853, we turned to the West for culture and science, and thus the laws, the philosophy, the religion and art of Occidental civilization were engrafted upon our institutions. The Japanese mind is earnestly engaged in moulding into one the two forms of culture, the Oriental and the Occidental, its ambition being to harmonize them, even as Rome harmonized the militarism of the northern tribes with the culture of the southern races of Europe.9

  Kaneko explained that just as England, off the coast of Europe, had become the highest receptacle of Anglo-Saxonism, Japan, off Asia’s coast, was the highest repository of orientalism. “Japan’s geographical situation,” he added, “has placed it between… both eastern and western civilizations, and [Japan] is rapidly absorbing and completely assimilating them.”10

  Kaneko portrayed Japan as battling the Slav in “an inevitable conflict… between Anglo-American civilization, as it has been inspired in the Japanese by England and America, on the one hand, and Muscovite despotism on the other.”11 He further explained that the Russo-Japanese War was one of Russian “continental militarism” against Anglo-Saxon “maritime commercialism.” Russia, he said, would take China for itself, “whereas, England, the United States and Japan are… always striving for the open door policy.”12 And he warned that Japan’s defeat of Russia was the last chance to civilize Asia: “If Japan be defeated now… the spirit and the principles of Anglo-American civilization will be obliterated from a vast portion of the eastern world. And it may be that centuries will pass before ever again humanity, and the universal brotherhood of Christianity, will dawn over the horizon of the continent of Asia.”13