Japan

An American bald eagle carries a scarecrow that looks like Uncle Sam, with battleships for hat, hands, and feet, across the Pacific Ocean toward “Japan,” where crows wearing military uniforms stand on the shore. The sun is rising in the background.

comments and context

Comments and Context

Displaying more than a little cynicism, Puck magazine and its cartoonist J. S. Pughe portrayed the upcoming departure of the Great White Fleet from San Francisco in December 1908, a few months hence. A few months earlier, President Roosevelt’s secretary William Loeb confirmed rumors and announced the purpose of the circumnavigational cruise on August 23.

Theodore Roosevelt, wearing a military uniform with the Japanese Imperial seal on the hat and holding a rifle, stands behind the “Park Row Earth Works,” as two rolled-up newspapers labeled “Sun” and “World” with rifles charge the earthworks. The background shows the war flag of the Japanese Imperial Army. Caption: “The war talk is due entirely to newspapers, which seek to increase their sales, and which for political reasons attack the Government.”–Taft at Tokio.

comments and context

Comments and Context

A week after spectacular Wall Street panic, Puck commented instead, for the second week in a row, on diplomatic friction between the United States and Japan. The wall Street situation was news, however, a rolling crisis and rather complicated, so perhaps it was safer to address international matters.

President Roosevelt writes to William Woodvill Rockhill to detail the background behind a misunderstanding with Chinese missionaries, citing a previous incident where they felt brushed aside by Rockhill, the American Minister to China. Roosevelt also asks Rockhill to explain a rumored rivalry between the Chinese and the Japanese. Roosevelt further mentions his desire to keep Chinese laborers out of the United States while supporting Chinese students, travelers, and businessmen.

Collection

Harvard College Library

Creation Date

1905-05-18

President Roosevelt confirms receipt of William Woodville Rockhill’s recent letter and agrees with his opinion. Roosevelt states that he does not have “much hope for peace” between Japan and Russia since the Russians are “such fools”.

Collection

Harvard College Library

Creation Date

1905-08-09

President Roosevelt confirms receipt of William Woodville Rockhill’s letter discussing the Japanese Navy and its weaponry. Roosevelt also continues his conversation regarding the Hankow Railroad Boycott and the state of Russo-Japanese relations.

Collection

Harvard College Library

Creation Date

1905-08-29

A sickly looking dove is caught in a birdcage fashioned from rifles and swords, with “Powder” kegs at the ends of a perch labeled “Peace Conference,” and topped with the flags of “England, Italy, France, Germany, Austria, Japan, Russia, Spain, [and] U.S.” Caption: “Caged.”

comments and context

Comments and Context

The second Hague Peace Conference — formally, the International Tribunal on Regulations Concerning the Laws and Customs of War on Land — was generally regarded as a bust before it began a few months subsequent to Puck‘s cover cartoon.

President Roosevelt expresses his appreciation for author and conservationist John Burroughs’s gift of the book, Far and Near, and encourages him to make note of his trip to Yellowstone in the next book.

Collection

Harvard College Library

Creation Date

1904-11-11

President Roosevelt responds to Robert Grant’s letter of August 30, 1905, regarding a doctor, gives him his literary opinion on Captain Craig, and briefly comments on diplomatic affairs with the Japanese.

Collection

Harvard College Library

Creation Date

1905-09-02

Domaye Zenkichi writes to express his gratitude toward President Roosevelt for reinstating permanent peace with the conclusion of the Russo-Japanese War. The letter and envelope are written in Japanese and an English translation is included. At the lower left corner of the translation is the inscription, “We concur heartily in the foregoing, Elihu Root, H.C. Lodge.”

Collection

Theodore Roosevelt Birthplace National Historic Site

Creation Date

1905-09-13

Baron Takahira announced his government’s intention of sending Prince Arisugawa and his wife, Yasuko Maeda, to meet with President Roosevelt and attend the Louisiana Purchase Exposition. Secretary of State Hay attempted to explain Roosevelt’s policy of not inviting royalty to the exposition but eventually consented to informing Roosevelt of the Japanese government’s intentions.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1902-03-05

Alvey A. Adee writes to William Loeb concerning Ambassador Robert Sanderson McCormick’s instruction that protested the decision of the Russian court about the USS Arabia. Instructions were sent to embassies in Europe and Japan.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1904-09-02

Second Assistant Secretary of State Adee encloses a note from the Japanese Minister regarding the recently negotiated treaty between Japan and Korea. Adee has responded to the Minister.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1904-09-02

President Roosevelt does not see why there should be any objections to the material in zoologist William T. Hornaday’s speech and he is in agreement with most recommendations. Roosevelt is trying to negotiate a seal treaty with Japan.

Collection

Harvard College Library

Creation Date

1909-02-01

Lord Lansdowne, British Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, writes to Britain’s ambassadors in Paris and St. Petersburg, with instructions to share the information he provides with the French and Russian governments. The letter discusses an agreement which had been signed between Great Britain and Japan in August 1902 but which was not made public, so as not to interfere with the negotiations between Russia and Japan.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1905-09-06

John Hay encloses a copy of a communication announcing that Japan has declared war against Russia, and requesting that the U.S. make its neutrality effective.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1904-02-11

Korean Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary Min Hui Cho is being transferred to Japan to take up a new post there, and requests a meeting with President Roosevelt before he departs in order to introduce Teh Moo Sin, the new interim Chargé d’Affaires for Korea.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1904-02-06

George Kennan reviews the Russian Empire’s social and political conditions that could influence the outcome of a Russian war with Japan. The lack of personal security and oppressive bureaucratic regulations dispirit much of the population whose grievances are ignored or punished. Revolutionary activity can be found throughout Russia and has infiltrated the state’s armed forces. A war would further strain the state’s bureaucracy and increase popular discontent. Even supporters of the government view the potential of war with “gloomy forebodings.”

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1904-01-30

President Roosevelt lays out guidelines for American neutrality during the Russo-Japanese War.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1904-02-15

Assistant Secretary of State Loomis encloses the last confidential communication from the Japanese government.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1904-01-05

Chargé d’Affaires of Britain Spring Rice details to First Lady Roosevelt the economic and political climate in Russia. While Spring Rice sees no immediate stirrings of revolution there, he hints that revolution may still be in Russia’s future because of the unsustainable, poor economic conditions in the rural areas and the dearth of strong, reform-minded leadership within the government. While Spring Rice sees Russia’s Interior Minister, Vi︠a︡cheslav Konstantinovich Pleve, as a capable leader, Pleve opposes reform, and though S. I︠U︡. Vitte, the chairman of the Committee of Ministers is “a strong man, too, and might be a reformer,” Emperor Nicholas II strongly dislikes him. Spring Rice also perceives Russia’s slights of other nations and its aversion to making treaties as hindrances to its government. Additionally, Spring Rice tells Roosevelt of a Russian folk story he has recently translated into English.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1903-12-09