The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, February 4, 1906, Page 10

. ' NMergen xpediting - the Preps ve fouty some of our g us of one mok s the ed one of the s of Tokid Orfental & m whose referred tc or of th des Mr Ho head of z et or co a dozen editors w paper is credited with being the st wide n all Japan. It proudly I s of a daily circulation of 200,000 and this could probably be g d if the Hochi Shim- improve the prevail- g n that country of news matter into printer cbn in 1 would probe time. We ave & up our type E derstand that our anguage is represented by 50,000 dif- ck hich 28,000 are mposing ally the acters are de- ommodate 2y nothing is imposed aily ether ary item the kes a journey room, climbing ‘take the matter ready for pre to before his st these conditions w your prin conveniently arran, thing within arm beforé a marvelously con- linotype machine and by the xterous use of hisg fingers. produces type by the lne, without moving away from his®work.” But I am carrying B@itor Tanomoki beyond the introductory remarks of this story. As I have already stated he came to the Unijed States for a pur- pose that concerns the future of jour- nalism in Japan. The recent war with own e m a3 é%m+3$mmw$% ol - N B Ll <+ - 1 A D . Ruszia opened the eyes of all classes in the Land of Sunrise to the need of further progression in Western civili- zation and of mone more so than the men who condyct the many daily news- papers of that country. While these papers have shown a great deal of en- terp: in the ‘past few years their editors have realized that they are still far trom the point of vxcellency reacnea’ by the papers of this country, which z{n‘:ly have been aping as far as 'pos- sible. b - The Hochi S8himbun, seemingly, has more keenly appreciated this fact than its rivals in and was the first to suggest “that K. Tanomoki jour- ney thither to acquaint himself with what 18 needed to improve the paper in the way .of modern machinery and ¥ i .methods of handling news. ‘It may be interesting to you to know' that the Hoch! Shimbun is the opposition paper of Toklo. It “has, for number' of years, taken a firm stand against the relgning power of Japan, but with all other ‘papers of ‘the empire it fell in line and loyally supp the Govern- ment throughout ‘the recent war and up_to the time the jpeace treaty was un- dertaken. Then it suddenly proclaimed itself against the plan of the Govern- , ment to accept peace without indemnity ‘and 8o vigorously fought the proposi- tion' that it finy aroused ;l::y :mme riotous and flu;nmmltud epredatis before pacified. Eis SRy Despite its opposition to the Govern- ' ment the Hochi Shimbun continues on its successful career and well it might “for it is really controlled by one of the strongest gien in the empire, ex-Pre- mier Okuma, who, after many’ political reversés before the war, now finds his political fortunes in the ascendency and has not been slow to demonstrate the fact to those who were wont to op- pose him in the past. His paper has ,as 1ts principal competitors in Tokio the Jiji Shimpo, the Nichi Nichl, the Kokumin and the Asakl The Koku- min is the reeognized Government mouthplece, ‘and, as is usually the case with newspapers that are controlled by the: people some selfish motive, its progress in the Journalistic world has not been apace ‘with other _urr of Toklo. The owner and editor of the Jiji Shimpo is’' the son-in-law of Viscount Hayashi, the present Japapese Minister in London. At the head of the Nichi Nichi is Mr. Kato, the former Japanese Minister to England, who Has as his editor in chief one of the ablest of the Ji Christians in To- kio, Mr. Yokol, who is serving a term as a member of tI panese Parllament. None of them, however, has been able to keep apace with the Hochi Shimbun in the matter of circulation, their own run- _ning all the way from 50,000 to 130,000, ~In the getting of live news during the recent war the ingenuity of the Japanese correspondent at the front and the home staff of reporters was put to a sorrowful test desvite his advantages over the for- eign paper correspondent in the knowl- edge of the Japanese language and the lay of the land, and his faflure to achieve guccess resulted in his position being filled In many places by white writers, whose messages were translated into Jap- anese and proGuced in as near the foreign style as the character language of the Orientalist would®nermit. It was this irnovation that appealed to - the readers of the Hochi Shimbun, whose Snext move was to secure news from abroad regarding the war, from American, English and German corres editors of. the paper had discovered that the AMIH!‘( and English papers were ipondents. The* for this country. getting more news out of the war than the Japanese, and were quick to decide on a plan to furnish some of this mews second-handed to the population of the Japan capital and the neighboring large cff Correspondents were select- ed in San Francisco, Washington, New York, London, Berlin, and later in Shang- hal, Seoul, Peking, Chefoo, Tientsin, Hong- kong and Singapore, and the news service soon became an extensive and expensive but at the same time a remunerative un- dertaking. . Other papers were not slow in estab- lishing similar connections, and before the war had closed the Japanese, despite the severe censorship, were at least get- ting a fair knowledge of what was going on on the figing lines of the two great armies in Manchuria—and as Mr. Tano- moki discussed this important period in Japanese newspaper history with me he smiled occasionally 8s his mind reverted to the many discouraging experiences he and his associate and rival editors had in getting this high priced news on the street and into the distant homes of their subscribers. “When we bad got our mews bureau working satisfactorily,” sald e, “we were confronted with many obstacles. For in- stance, we found that our time was too limited to furnish our patrons with the complete details of a battle or other ex- citing incident of the war, and we were compelled to trust to their patience until another issue appeared. ~ This trouble was entirely due to the enforced use of the Japanese characters, of which I have already spoken, and which are mot so readily set up as the type in an American newspaper office. “The preparation of an item of news in a Japanese composing room gen- erally consumes the better part of two hours, if not more, whereas your methods of composing would permit you to get your news on the street in half an hour. Still we persevered and in our handicapped way Wwe were soon getting extras on the street. But they did not resemble the extra that the American newsboy derfves a magnifi- cent remuneration for peddling through the thickly inhabited portions of your enterprising cities. “When we got a plece of news that we thought our readers would like to have we issued it on a small leaflet, containing no other information. These Jeaflets, sent out at all hours of the day and night, sold for prices varying from one to two cents, and tended to keep the Japanese excitement at a white heat. “With the war over we now propose to profit by our past experiences and endeavor to place ourselves on a foot- ing with our contemporaries on this continent and the western side of our own. From the day that the first Hoe hand press forced the old Chinese methods of printing out of Japan, which was many years ago—and, if I am cor- rect, it was the Hochi Shimbun that was responsible for this innovation— the papers of our country have been steadily improving, but at all times seriously handicapped by the disadvan- tages of our character language. “An agitation for the abolishment of this burdensome language in favor of the written language of the English was started several years ago and has since been strongly suppqrted by ‘men of rank, such as Korekiyo Takahashi, Japan’s eminent financier, who has just completed a visit to San Francisco, on his way home after a two years' ab- sence. “To the more cultured of our people the adoption of the Arabian letters for general use has been regarded as an .absolute necessity in the furtherance of our national schemes of advance- ment for a number of years, and par- ticularly -was this needed change thor- oughly appreciated in the advent of the typewriter. which, to us. as a prac- tical business utility, proved a disap- pointing failure by reason of the fact that it could not be made adaptable to our form of character writing. “It-ewas this fact that prompted me to refer to Mergenthaler and his genius when I saw his wonderful machine In wperation. The time is not far distant, I believe, when our government will miske a special Issue of this matter, an.i with {ts subjects ever willing to foliow any movement that m gen- eral advancement of their intérests, the character language will rapldly fall into disuse. It will be a great day for the Japanese daily newspaper, which by that time will probably have per- fected itself in all other modern re- quiremefits and educated itself for the broadest field of usefulness at home.” Editor Tanomok!, during his stay here, is paying close attention to the pictorial work of the daily papers, especially the art of reproduction and half-tone work. While the Japanese dailles| are already” engaged in half-tone wrk.‘lt is of the crude method—the old copper style, the half-tone being inlaid in wood and illumin- ated by hand carving in the latter. He is also inspecting modern presses, getting ideas in the adver.sing line, In the dis- tribution of papers, the handling of repor- torial staffs and the betterment of the telegraph service, especially in the use of the wireless service, which he says s to figure prominently in the future history making of Japanese journalism. “Part of the general scheme of the Jap- anese newspapers for the handling of its tel h news,” said he, “is a wireless service, plans for the establishing of which we discussed before my departure Under these plans it is proposed to have a distributing station in Tokio and from there the news will be sent to large citles like Yokohama, Kloto. Oshima and Nagasaki and possibly to th~ coast of Korea. It is also. proposed to transmit forelgn news from the cable landing ‘o one of our connecting stations by the wireless system, thus saving the expenses of tolls by wire. It is possidbls that this news service will be in opera- tion before I return to Tokio. It is not the ‘exelusive undertaking of the Hoch! Shimbun, but the project of. & syndicate of which that paper Is an important factor.™ The colored supplement with its aceom- panying comic addition has also attract- ed his attention. Already the papers of Japan have tackled the color featurs of modern journalism and the colored sup- plement is now a frequent issue in con- nection with the daily. The comic page is yet to be imtroduced—that is, a col- ored comlc page which will give the Jap- anese reader something new to laugh at and stimulate his desire for a regular mental digestion of the funny phases of life, extravagant as they may seem In * pictorial illustrations, “The Japanese have been accused of being great imitators,” remarked Editor Tanomokl, but I share with Korekiyo Takahashi the opinion he once gave to one of your American ladies in Washing- ton that ‘we do not imitate but adopt.’ It is therefore possible and even probable that a few months ma e Japa editor, through his art aff, some of His humor on the readers of his paper. A funny picture appeals to Japanese just as quickly as to the eigner anu it Is my opinion that he will take very kindly to his supplement upon fts advent. s “The serfal story, such as the papers in this country are mow serving to their readers, has already been introduced into Japanese journalism and meets with gen- eral approval, and why not? As I have already explained, it is often necessary for us to continue a portion of a big news item because our time will not permit us to serve it out in one single edition. If the Japanese reader will stand for this he is naturally agreeable to a serial method of giving him a fiction story.” That Mr. Tanomek} has not devoted all his time and attention to newspaper in- novation is quickly evidenced by his knowledge of the affairs of the outside world, which he candidly admits he has informed himself of at home while pe- rusing the American newspapers, for which he liberally subscribes. As our conversation progressed it suddenly de- viated from the line of modern journal- ism and pleasantly landed upon the sub- Ject of Japan's most recent move of vating her diplomatic repreésentatives MY London, Washington and Berlin to the dignity of an Embassador. Of Viseount Aoki’s appointment to Washington as the successor to Minister Takahira, Mr. Tan- omoki spoke as a friend, for he and the Embassador are on friendly terms, through their relations with ex-Premier Okuma. she Viscount is a remarkably success- ful man,” sald he, “and one that will easily win friends in Washington. At home he Is one of the most popular of noblemen, which may be partly attribu- ted to the distinction hé has earned in his various diplomatic positions abroad and partly as ome of the foremost advocates in Japan of martial sports. He is at the head of a society organized for promoting these sports, and when the Viscount 1s at home each May flnds him at Kioto taking an active part in the direction of the annual games, which at- tract large numbers of the young Jap- anese athletes there for healthful exer- cise. Buildings have been erected for the carrying on of these games and the ov- ernment assists the soclety In encourag- ing the sport. “There you will see an array of brawn that would be a credit to any race, white, brown or black. Jiu-jitsu, fencing, wrest- ling and archery, the favorite games of our_ people, furnish the principal sport of the meeting. As an expert swordsman in his youth Viscount Aokl won special recognition among his young countrymen, and his great prowess with the blade eventually was responsible for his elec. tion to the vresidency of the Butu-kwi, the society which manages the annual games at Kloto. “The Embassador's home is in Tokio. and an elaborate establishment it is, pos- sessing one of the largest of the city's private ballrooms, where the most distin- guished of the Japanese are frequently assembled at soclal functions. The Vis- count was educated in Germany, where he married his wife, who is a Prussian noblewoman—the Baropess von Rahden, I believe is her name—and she is to ac- company her nusband to Washington. Al- though it is but natural that he should have a frienw.y feeling for Germany, the ‘Viscount has a high admiration for Amer- fcans, a fact to which your countrymen in Tokio will testify, and the diplomatic circles of Washington will not be disap- pointed with the Embassauor when they have met him. “At the first conference at The Hague the abliity of Viscount Aokl as a diplomat attracted public notice and made for him a name. Since then he has been almost constantly in the” Governmental service, but most recently as a member of the Privy Council, which to a man of his active spirit was not a particular attrac- tive position, notwithstanding that . it carries with it the highest honors.” Editor Tancmoki contemplates making a week's stay in San Francisco, and will then proceed on to the Eastern citieal pursue his studies of joursalistic . ods and glean whatever other informa- tion that may be of personal value to ‘him in his editorial work in the office of the Hock! Shimbun In Toklo~