YUSUKE TSURUMI BRINGS MESSAGE FROM JAPAN TO HANOVER AUDIENCES
During the week of December 8 the College community greatly enjoyed a series of lectures by Yusuke Tsurumi, a young Japanese liberal, who came to Hanover as one of the speakers on the Guernsey Center Moore Foundation for Dartmouth Alumni Lectureships. These have ordinarily been delivered immediately following Commencement but this year it was felt advisable to have one of the lecturers in Hanover in December and the other in March. This arrangement was in the hope of making the lectures available for a greater number of men, for the undergraduate body and for alumni who have not been able to attend in June.
Mr. Tsurumi was the principal speaker at the Williamstown Institute of Politics this summer and is also to speak at Columbia, Harvard, Princeton, and Yale while in this country. At Hanover he pleaded for a greater degree of understanding between the two nations and spoke quite frankly of the resentment of liberals of Japan at the recent Exclusion Act.
The Japanese scholar gave a very vivid picture of present day conditions in his native country and traced the growth of the liberal movement. He believes that the civilization of the future belongs to the Pacific. He explained Japan's policy of cultural influence in China and expects the two nations to grow together in friendliness and power. An interesting feature of his Hanover visit was the discussions with two Chinese special students at Dartmouth.
Repeatedly Mr. Tsurumi expressed the wish that Americans would soon realize that Japan has more to offer than silk and yenns. He explained quite fully that valuable criticism in time results from what is generally looked down upon as "Japanese mimicry," and that Japan may yet make important contributions to the culture of the western hemisphere. He says that the strength of the present empire rests on affection for the emperor.
He also gave a very clear insight into the historical development of Japan's foreign policy comparing the acquisition of Korea and Formosa to our annexation of Texas, Louisiana and Alaska.
The topics of the individual lectures were: "The Old Order and Its Vigorous Foreign Policy," "The Rising Tide of Liberalism," "Labor Movement in Town and Country," "Intellectual Currents and Journalism in Modern Japan," and "The Impact of the Immigration Law on the Japanese Nation." While here Mr. Tsurumi addressed the Arts and granted several private interviews.
The Guernsey Center Moore Foundation which makes possible the Alumni Lectureships is based on a gift of $100,000 to the College by Henry L. Moore '87 of Minneapolis, Minn., in memory of his son who was a member of the class of 1904.
