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About Omaha daily bee. (Omaha [Neb.]) 187?-1922 | View Entire Issue (July 11, 1909)
unday Bee. ADVERTISE W THE OMAHA DEE BEST IN THE WEST I PART THBXE Ihalf-tone L PAGES 1 TO 4. The Omaha VOL. XXXIX-NO. 4. OMAHA, SUNDAY MORNING, JULY 11, 1909. SINGLE COPY FIVE CENTS. JAPANESE MEMORIAL TO THEIR PORT ARTHUR HEROES Monuments to Fallen Fighters Rise Amid Evidence of the Ferocity of the Struggle in Which They Lost Their Lives While Fighting for Possession of the City. V . j .. - ; B iri '""' . " -li,r -nr ni',-r 7.1 1 lit ' ' ' '. ' , - I "-v-T-ii ir . , '. . A .-t -w.iw.a-L.' '" '..'I ji'i3 " I 671 " " .. . ;'sfc-'--s' 'A. .1 V ' f ' .Vis . , ' ' II 1: v : El . ' - " . ' ' . - ill J It, ' J : : "W"'-'rv ! V 1 . ! 1 1 ... I 1 -- p IF t 'It SCENE AT THE DEDICATION OF THE SHINTO SHRINE. UNDER .WHICH LIE 22,000 JAPANESE KILLED AT PORT ARTHUR. IN ONE OF THE RUINED FORTS. (Copyright, 1909, by Frank O. Carpenter.) ORT ARTHUR, Manchuria, 1909. (Special Correspondence of The Bee.) I spent this morning on Quail hill, where the Japanese are erecting a memorial In honor of their heroes who died at Port Arthur. The hill is a saddle- shaped elevation which rises to a height of a thousand or more feet out of the arena of the amphitheater in which Port Arthur Is located. It faces the narrow entrance to the harbor where the Japanese and Russian gunboats showered shells upon one another, and about it may be seen the hills forming the rim of the amphi theater upon which were the fortifications taken one by one by the Japanese during the siege. ' Quail hill from now on will be called Monument hill. It Is a fitting site to mark the glorious victory of the soldiers of the mikado. It overlooks Golden hill and The Tiger's Tall, which with their fortifications protect the harbor entrance, and it is the first elevation to be seen coming in from the sea. It is right upon Its top that the monument is now going up. A everywhere, and some of them want deep into the ground. As soon as the fighting was over the Chinese by the thousands swarmed over the landscape and gathered up every bit of lead and iron in Bight. They even dug up the shells. Often they would find one which had not been exploded, and would innocently pound on the cap with a pick. The result was another big hole in the earth, and the almond-eyed diggers scattered over the landscape In pieces. Today it is difficult to find large chunks of shell, although there are Innumerable bits of iron about the forts, as well as all sorts of relics of the Japanese and Russians. There are army buttons, torn caps and coats and pieces of the barbed wire, which, charged with electricity, entangled the soldiers as they climbed the hills and burnt them to death. I saw rotting sandbags and tattered leather coats worn by the Russians here and there about one of the forts, and I JAPAN'S MONUMENT TO RUSSIAN DEAD. glng the rocks in the fort tun nels. Much of the fighting was hand-to-hand. In tunneling into the forts the Japanese and the Russians were often close to one another, and they remained to for days, separated only by ramparts of sandbags. As I looked; at one of the ports a Japanese officer pointed out a tunnel in which he said he had fought for several days with his fellows, the Russians being on the other side of the wall, so close that the troops could hear one another talk. Said the officer: "We joked with each other, using one of our men as an inter preter, and we even' passed brandy and tobacco over the sandbags." "How did the Russians fight?" I asked. "They fought bravely, but the odds were against them in that their common soldiers did not know what they were fighting for. They did not care for Manchuria, and they had no faith in their em- great temple of ailver gray granite, it will be about 300 feet high . picked up a pocketful of splinters from the shells which the Japanese peror. Every Japanese esteemed it ar honor to die for his country, and will cost almost $200,000. The stone for it is coming by the shipload from Shlmonosekl, Japan, and hundreds of huge granite ' blocks are now scattered about the harbor, and at the foot of the bill. Many of them are as large as a library table, and not, a few weigh several tons each. A cable road has been constructed from the harbor to the site of the monument, and a steam engine drags up the blocks on low cara. The monument Is already about one-third completed. The pedestal has been finished and the first series of Ionic columns erected. The scaffolding about the structure can be seen for miles around Port Arthur, and the monument will command both land and sea. When I visited It today 200 Chinese masons were chiseling at the stones and the great blocks were rapidly rising into place. The work is being done by Manchurlan-Chinese, under Japanese over seers. Most Impressive Monument . I have visited the world's most tamous monuments, from the mighty shaft to Washington, which rises from the base of the Potpmac in our own capital city, and the great sarcophagus of Napoleon in Paris, to the gigantic boulders on the Rhodeslan hills which mark the grave of Cecil Rhodes, but I have seen nothing so Impressive as this. At one end of the mighty elevation stands the monument, and at the other end, perhaps 800 feet distant. Is a Shinto shrine of this same silver gray granite, under which lie the bones of more than 22,000 Japanese heroes who were killed at Port Arthur. The' platform upon which the shrine stands Is reached through a great copper bronze torll, and at each side of the latter Is a granite lantern, like those one sees at Nlkko and about the other shrines of Japan. The stone platform must be more than 100 feet square, although the shrine itself is comparatively small. These two monuments cover the whole top of the bill. They are reached had thrown. Some Relics of the Siege The terrors of the siege are shown Dy the museum in Port Arthur. The government has collected relics from the various battle fields and placed them in a big building outside the, old. town. They have made models of the forts, which show the devilish ingenuity that both the Japanese and Russians ubed in destroying one another. There are great colls of the barbed wire which was scattered over the hillsides. The wire was connected with powerful batteries Inside the fortifications and such soldiers as blundered against it in the dark were sure to be killed. There were twenty kinds of hand gre nades, filled with nitroglycerin. They look like miners' lamps, but when thrown they really lit the way to death. The Japanese had wooden guns, ten or twelve Inches in di ameter, which they carried with them into the trenches. Their projectiles for these were cans of Bhlmose powder holding from a pint to two quarts, and they caused terrible destruction. They had also squares of deal board which were burled a few Inches below the surface. Attached to these were tubes of acids so connected by wires that they exploded as the-troops stepped on the boards, throwing a whole company Into the air. Here also are the min:s which were used on land and sea. These are acorn-shaped Iron shells ae big as a bushel basket, which would blow up a ship at area or destroy a company or a regiment upon land. The museum has every kind of shell, from some as high as one's shoulder down to little follows the size of your finger. It has Japa nese flags which the Russians used to entice their enemies within reach of their guns, and a Japanese kite which they used to test the wind before sending tip their balloons. It has pieces of silk which they employed during the latter part of the siege to make sandbags, by military roads, which wind their way up the mountain, and also nd Bteel p,ck8 of 8,1 k'nd8. from new ones, fresh from the stores, by steps for foot passengers. x down to some which are wbrn to the length of one's thumb by dig- and the most of us would rather have died than been defeated." "But would not the Russians have beaten you It the war had gone on much longer?" , "I do not know," was the reply. "We were in a bad way when the hostilities were suspended. Our money was almost used up and It Is doubtful if we could have kept on fighting. Indeed, we owe everything to your President Roosevelt. It was his offer of peace that saved us, and I can tell you we appreciate his work at that time. The Japanese worship him, and if he ever visits Japan we will just kill him with kindness In showing our gratitude." ' Just here I would say that I have heard many such expressions concerning Theodore Roosevelt. He is a hero to the Japanese, and they cannot speak of him too highly. His biographies, printed in their language, have been sold by the thousands, and even the school children know all about him. During a call upon Prince Ito a few months ago his excellency referred to Mr. Roosevelt in the highest terms. He said: "Theodore Roosevelt is a friend of Japan and we honor him much." The prince thereupon ordered his servant to bring in a photograph of the ex-president. It was originally of cab inet size, which Mr. Roosevelt had sent to Prince Ito with his auto graph at the foot conveying his regards. The photograph had been enlarged to more than life size and it was beautifully framed. Prince Ito ordered it placed on a chair facing us, so that our ex-president seemed to be a part of the interview. Its Glory Gone The Port Arthur of today makes me think of one of the Inflated towns of our great west after its boom has exploded. Just before the war(began the Russians were preparing to make it one of the finest cities of Asia. They had erected enormous buildlngB for their officials and were putting up residences to correspond. Merchants and other private citizens were doing likewise. New structures were going up everywhere and houses of fifty and sixty rooms were being erected. In the new, town, which formed the Russian resl- v V 7 . .... A At. - . ,V . . . . . ... . B . Lome wuu me to iu iuoi oi iu iuuuuluoui sua is a oira seye view of the battlefields of Port Arthur, as they He here in this quiet year of our Lord, 1909. We are right in the midst of the amphi theater In which, for eight months, day and night, went on the greatest gladiatorial show the world has yet known. Just under us is the harbor which was filled with the Russian gunboats, and on Its shores are the old and new towns which were occupied by the soldiers during the siege. On that sea, outside, lay the blockading Japanese squadron sending its shrieking shells at the ships and the cliy. On the hills all about us were Russian soldiers, and on their opposite sides the Japanese armies, crawling and plowing and tunnel ing their way to the forts. The story of how, inch by inch, every bit of the ground was fought over and how at last Japan was success ful has been told in song and story, and you may find it today in the books describing the war. I doubt, however, whether any such story can show the real wonders of the defense and attack, or the heroism of both bodies of troops. Desolate Country Indeed The country about here is much like the bare hills of Montana or Colorado. It Is dry and thirsty. There is no vegetation except scanty grass, with here and there a bit of scrub oak. The fighting was all In the open, and the fortifications hadvto be thrown up out of rock, gravel and disintegrated stone. The tunnels, made by the Japanese, were not through earth, but through rock, and in under mining the forts they could go but a few feet a day. Nevertheless, while overlooking these hills one sees scores of miles of such trenches. The work on the embankments reminds you of the great Chinese wall and the hundred miles and more of military roads which the Russians built to reach their various fortifications impress one 4rtth the vast sums which they spent, all In vain. Their form were of concrete, reinforced with Iron, and they embrace a circle of more than ten miles. They made Port Arthur the strongest fort ress ever besieged. Today all of the forts erected for land defense are in ruJLns. The Japanese do not Intend to repair them, and the only work they are doing is upon those facing .the sea. They have added to and strengthened the fortresses on Golden hill and the Tiger's Tail, and they prohibit strangers from visiting the battlefields along the eoast. As to the other parts of Port Arthur one may go anywhere, provided he leaves his camera at home. There are scores of drosch ktea which were brought In by the Russians, and are now oVned by Chinese. These are hauled by little Manehurlan ponies, and they will take you all over the country at 25 cents an hour or for a Kttle more than 13 a day. During my slay here I have visited many of the battlteflelds and have tramped over the bills where the severest fighting fcook place. The grounds are scarred by Iron shot and the face ofold Mother Earth has been pockmarked by the siege. The shells .vera thrown Gunnison Tunnel Redeems a Great Arid Area ON T N THE morning of September 23, at 11 o'clock, President William Taft will press a button which will lift a headgate at the point where the Gunnison river flows past the mouth of the Gunnison tunnel in southwestern Colorado. A torrent of water will swee,p; into the six-mile tunnel, flow smoothly; down the cement-lined pathway and emerge into ditches, which will carry it Into the Uncompahgre valley. The greatest Irrigation enterprise ever completed by this or any other nation will be formally opened. In summing up the facts thus briefly, one galnr. no Idea of the magnitude of the enter prise or the vast good which it will accom plish.. The government, through the Gunni son tunnel, guarantees to supply a perma nent and "adequate water right for 150,000 acres of land. Of this 40,000 acres now has a partial supply of water and Is under culti vation. The remaining 110,000 acres is now raw, arid land, but a year from today it will be as green and fertile as any land in the valley. Ten thousand families can f nd homes on this land and earn good Incomes. A peculiar feature of the enterprise is that the cost to the government will be prac tically nothing. The cost of building the tunnel will be between 15.000,000 and' 16,000,000, but this money is only loaned to the western farmers, who have agreed to pay It back In ten years according to the acreage they hold under the tunnel ditches. Uncle Sam has spent millions upon millions In public improvements, widening water ways, building levees and the like, all doubt less worthy objects, but this is the first time in history that the people benefited have paid the government back the money in vested. In this esse the only contribution made by the government is the interest on the money loaned, and this will be more than repaid by the Increase in the output of the country. The westerners might have induced con gress tOygive them the money, but they real ized that it would take a campaign of edu cation lasting twenty-flve years to teach the eastern men the value of reclamation and they wanted to start work at once. Hence the plan for repayment. The completion of the Gunnlsdn tunnel is the realization of the dream of a western ranchman, to whom, more than any one man, must be given credit for the idea. Meade Hammond was his name -he died about ' two years ago and he was a tall, lanky, raw-boned man, with a voice that would put a foghorn to shame. He became a member of the Colorado legislature, and' there he expounded his plan. "The Uncompahgre valley Is the most fertile spot in Colorado," he told his fellow members, "but what we need is water. A few miles away the Gunnison river Is flow ing away to waste In a rocky canyon, so high that the water can never be taken out at the top for Irrigation purposes. I want to dig a tunnel right through the range, tap the stream and put the" water on the valley." Mr. Hammond was so insistent, he talked so loud and so often, that the legislature finally appropriated $25,000 for the purpose of making an investigation to determine If his scheme was feasible. The state of Colo rado even went so far as to start building the tunnel, but quickly gave it up when it came to a realization of what the work would cost. It was about this time that the reclama tion service commenced work and one of the first projects called to its attention was the Gunnison tunnel. With the deliberation that characterizes all acts of the govern ment, it spent four years in investigation. . Engineers were lowered at the end of ropes hundreds of feet down the steep sides of the canyon in order that they might measure the flow of the river at different times and determine if the supply would be permanent and adequate. One party went through the canyon in a boat, the first and only time the feat has ever been accomplished. It was at last decided by the government that the ranchman's scheme was practical and a contract for building the tunnel was let. Within a few months the firm which had undertaken the work quit, forfeiting a heavy bond, when they came to realize that the enterprise was one of greater magnitude than they had supposed, y Then Uncle Sam took ofT his coat and went on the Job himself. He built model towns at both ends of the tunnel for bis em ployes. He put up schools for the children and recreation clubs for the men. One could buy almost anything except liquor in these camps, snd as a result the workmen have been singularly happy and well sat Isfled. Today the men working at each breast of the tunnel are within 200 feet of each other, but should a man In one gang desire to visit a workman in the other fang he must face a little walk of twenty-two miles up the mountain under which the tunnel is dug and down the othr side. The nearest daylight is two miles away, and that Is straight up through the top of the mountain. The exact dimensions of the Gunnison tunnel are as follows: Length, 30,578 feet; cross section. 12x18 feel; elevation of portal at the river entrance where . the water is taken out, ,6,533 feet; portal where it Is dis charged Into the ditches, 6,471 feet; ca pacity. 1,300 cubic feet of water per second. The statement was made earlier in this article that the land to be irrigated by the government would furnish homes for 10,000 families. The number might even be' in creased without exaggeration. Delta county ships more fruit' than any other county In Colorado, although the fact Is not widely (Continued on Page Three.) dence section, a dozen or so of such buildings, with the scaffolding about them, are still to be seen. Some are finished to the roofs and others to the first floors only. They have not been touched since the war and are going to ruin. Such residences as were completed can now be rented for a few dollars a month. Just opposite my hotel stands a brick house of three stories which contains fifty rooms. It probably cost $75,000 to build, and It could be rented today for $60 a month. Adjoining it Is another residence which Is still larger. It is occupied at a ren tal of $35. On the hill behind me are the foundations of a Russian cathedral which, if completed, would be as large as any church building in the United States. It was about ready for the walls when the war occurred and it was stopped forever. A new hotel which had been erected In the old city was turned into a hospital during the siege. It is now the property of the Japanese Red Cross society and is used as a hospital for the Japanese. The Japanese officials occupy many of the Russian public build ings. The civil offices of the Manehurlan government are in a gray structure in the new town; the military department is in a white building farther back and the Russian naval offices, which covered an acre or so, are to be turned into a Japanese military academy. The hotel in which I write this letter is the once famous restaurant known as Saratofts, where the Russian officers gambled away thou sands of rubles and drank their vodka. It has the same bar room and the same Odessa billiard table, but the vodka has disappeared and a Japanese bartender dispenses .saki instead. Japanese girls wait upon you in the dining room and Japanese boys act as your chambermaids. The hotel belongs to the South Manehurlan railway, which is now a Japanese corporation, and It has become a most or derly place, Russians in a Panic I had a talk this evening with an official who was here when Port Arthur fell. He tells me that the Russians were crazy to get away and that furniture of every kind went for a song. Said he: "Sofas, tables and chairs could be had for the asking and grand pianos brought $25 apiece. Costly hangings were thrown out into the streets, and some of the houses were set fire to by their owners. After we took possession I found our soldiers tearing up valuable books and using them for fuel or throwing them out into the snow, and I besought the general in charge to allow me to go through the town and save the libraries. He did so, and as he saw how many books there were gave me a detail of soldiers to bring them in. We collected altogether about 20,000 volumes. The most of them wero in Russian, but there were a thousand or so In French and English. Several hundred were in Italian and some Chinese and Japanese. There were nine sets of encyclopedias, all Russian or German, and a great many musical books. I tried to catalogue them, classifying them first by languages and later by subjects. The most of the volumes were fiction, but there were many scientific works. There were Russian translations of Shakespeare and Dickens, and also of Mark Twain's "Innocents Abroad." The Russians had every luxury here. They lived well and at the close even better than we Japanese; for by the terms of our capitulation we gave them fresh meat, although we were living on canned stuffs ourselves. Nevertheless we could not satisfy them." The Port Arthur of Russia was far different from that of Japan. In the old days there were soldiers everywhere. Military officers, dressed in big caps and long coats, swaggered through the streets. There was a large garrison, everything was booming and money and drink flowed like water. A circus building was erected In which all sorts of shows were held, and there were famous cafes and restau rants. Today the circus has been turned Into a bazaar and about two score Japanese women sell all sorts of goods at the booths within it. The soldiers have disappeared. The Japanese have only one regiment here, and nothing like as many troops are to be seen as In the towns of Korea or even Japan. City Is Dead As far as business is concerned the city is dead. It consists of about 6,000 Manehurlan Chinese, and the military and civil officials of the Japanese government. The Chinese are poor. I see full grown men going around with baskets on their shoulders picking up the droppings of manure from the streets. When a man's wages for a whole day are equal to a half bushel of such stuff he must be poor Indeed. The Chinese do the rough work of Port Arthur. Many of them are now engaged in getting out the blocks of stone with which the Kusslans sank their merchant vessels when they knew that Port Arthur must fall. More than thirty ships were destroyed In that way, some thousand stone blocks being used for the purpose. One will be erected as a monument in each playground to keep alive the memory of the heroes of Port Arthur. "Will your people continue to hold Manchuria and Korea!"' I asked this question of a high Japanese officer. "Yes," was the emphatic reply. "We shall hold on to Korea as long as there Is a bone left In a soldier's leg to stand upon the soli. We are in Manchuria to stay, and we will die before we will allow either the Chinese or RuHsIans to drive us away." At the same time I find a kindly feeling for the Russians among the Japanese. They have erected a little granite temple with a Greek cross upon Its top as a monument to their dead among, their enemies who fell at Port Arthur. This Is situated on a low hill about two miles from the city, and surrounding It are the graves of thousands of Russian soldiers. There Is a brick wall Inclosing sev eral acres about the monument. In this space the officers are burled, tne grave of each being marked with a stone or Iron cross. Outride on the slopes of the hill stands a thicket of white wooden crosses rising to the height of a man's shoulder, and marking the graves of the privates. The Inscriptions on the monument are in Japanese and Russian, and they state that the memorial was erected by the emperor of Japan in honor of the bravery of his great enemy, the Russians. , FRANK O. CARPENTER.
