went to America. In 1912 over eight thousand Japanese came to the United States, and in 1913, following the diplomatic arrangement made by President Roosevelt, the number dropped to about six thousand. Such restriction can only be temporary, however, and no diplomatic arrangement can ever remain unquestioned for long, to say nothing of the ease with which it may be evaded or its meaning stretched to cover violations of the spirit. The pressure upon the economic structure of Japan is now tremendous and daily increasing. The problem of a great surplus of idle, hungry, and turbulent population is now facing the Japanese Government. To find an outlet for this population, to give employment to the idle, feed the hungry, and replenish the purses of the people, and incidentally that of the Government, is the only way out.

America presents to this harassed people an ideal avenue of escape, cheap transportation, plenty of work at wages beyond the dreams of the Japanese laborer at home, a chance to save, and in the end a chance to return to Japan with money and experience. It is hardly to be supposed that any so-called tacit understanding between governments will divert attention from this golden opportunity. That is the Japanese point of view. Now, what about that of America?

At the same time the state department is endeavoring to prevent Congress from adopting the principle of Japanese exclusion and trying to convince Japan that we contemplate no unfriendly act, a bill is being enacted into law in Washington proposing still further to restrict immigration into the United States. It appears to be virtually agreed that less immigration is desirable. The alien laborer now has few friends in Washington, and it is going to be made increasingly difficult for him to enter in the future. The Federal Industrial Commission is now investigating the problem of unemployment with a view to suggesting remedies. The existence of a great number of unemployed in cities, said to be 350,000 in New York alone, is not a strong argument against Japanese

admission, for they are largely agricultural laborers and domestic servants. There is

a scarcity rather than an oversupply of these forms of labor in the United States; but the commission will undoubtedly give support to the movement toward a generally greater restriction of all immigration, thus adding as a matter of principle to the force of the argument in favor of Japanese exclusion. What is even more significant is the fact that no immigration law which will be passed by Congress now or for some time to come in the future will be so strict as to exclude the Japanese unless they are forbidden entry by specific racial designation. They are an ambitious and alert people, primary education is becoming very general among them, they are clean and healthy; in brief, they could not be denied admission even on grounds which might keep out half of those who are now coming from southeastern Europe. There is no hope in that expedient. If not specifically barred, they will come in course of time despite treaties. They will come in increasing numbers, and the Japanese laborers will live in America in colonies of their own. They will work faithfully, earn large sums of money, and either send this money home or take it with them when they go, which they will, a large percentage at least, when their object is accomplished. This movement of Japanese population will be migratory in character.

There is no escape for the American people from this question; the issue of Japanese immigration cannot be dodged. If they are not wanted, there is only one way to keep them out. If they are to be admitted, let them stand flat-footed with the peoples of other nations, and take their chances before the immigrant inspectors on American frontiers. This is the real question to be decided, and not one of temporarily placating the Japanese Government with the exchange of notes, the making of treaties, and the bringing about of tacit understandings; for these are only subterfuges, and unworthy of two great nations in these times of "daylight diplomacy."

G

'OLF is a great game, a game worthy

to be played and known and loved by men; but of the countless thousands who are called golfers there are too many who are engaged merely in raveling the husk, who will not seek the kernel. To such as these "the soul of golf" has no meaning; but there is no reason why any golfer who really loves the game should miss the true joy and comfort that come from a perfect comprehension of its spirit. This, in effect, is in its attainment something quite other than the words seem to convey. One is inclined to imagine that the soul of golf is something vague and intangible, and that in a way is true; yet, curiously enough, this intangibility can be reached and truly appreciated only by way of the most material and practical path ever trodden by the true lover of the game. He who would have Iwithin him the spirit of golf, who would know it to its very core, must seek the soul through the body; for in no other way can it be found.

It is not hard to understand why many who play golf miss much of the true beauty of the game. The simple reason is that for time whereof the memory of man runneth not to the contrary they have been worshiping gods whose feet not only were of clay, but very much misplaced.

In the whole realm of athletic sports there is scarcely a game or pastime about which so much has been written as about golf; but unfortunately most of this is fundamentally unsound, and much that is essential to a complete understanding of the game has been neglected. In a full bibliography of this great game one may see these sins of commission and omission associated with the greatest names in its history, and the unfortunate golfer who goes to these experts for their written instruction is generally doomed to miss the truth, for the greatest players in the world do not practise what they preach.

As it is easy to make general statements of this nature, let us be specific, and consider separately some of the most important material elements of golf whereby. the earnest student may in due course know the spirit.

It is of the essence of good golf, indeed an absolutely fundamental requisite, that the player must know how to use his weight in the swing. Unless he understands this, there will be no rhythm in his stroke, and instead of his arms, legs, and body working in harmony, they will hinder one another.

"How can he find out what he ought to do?" is a very natural question. The answer is naturally, "Follow the example set by the most famous and successful players."

Without doubt these are Harry Vardon, James Braid, and J. H. Taylor, each of whom has won five open championships; but as the inquirer cannot personally watch these men playing, he does the next best thing, and turns to their, books. Here we come right to the root of the trouble. These great and famous players, in common with nearly all writers on golf, practise one method and preach another, so that their published works are really causing great harm to the game instead of uplifting and improving it.

Let us consider what each of them says about the distribution of weight, which may truly be termed the base of golf.

Vardon says in "The Complete Golfer," speaking of the position at the top of the swing:

While this is happening it follows that the weight of the body is being gradually thrown on to the right leg, which accordingly stiffens until at the top of the swing it is quite rigid, the left leg being at the same time in a state of comparative freedom, slightly bent in towards the right, with only just enough pressure on the toe to keep it in position.

rent of the fallacy of the left, though Taylor is the most outspoken advocate of this mistaken idea. On page 193 of "Taylor on Golf" he says:

My contention is simply this: that the grasp of the right hand upon the club must be sufficiently firm in itself to hold it steady and true, but it must not be allowed on any account to overpower the left. The idea is that the latter arm must exercise the predominant influence in every stroke that may be played. As regards my own position in the matter, my grip with either hand is very firm, yet I should hesitate before I told every golfer to go and do likewise.

I think that the methods, the real methods, of any golfer who has won five open championships are entitled to much respect. I do not hesitate to advise all golfers to 'go and do likewise," even as Taylor does, for it is the only correct way. Any attempt to apportion the amount of power used by the right or the left arm or hand must inevitably result in disaster. It cannot be successfully accomplished, and indeed should not be tried.

Taylor goes so far as to say, "The club is brought down principally by the left wrist, the right doing very little until the hands are opposite the right leg, when it begins to assert itself, bringing the full face of the club to the ball." Again he says: "But in the game of golf he must keep in front of him at all times the fact that the left hand should fill the position of guide, and it must have the predominating influence on the stroke." But he who looks on this as a "fact" is merely another who is raveling the husk, merely another aimless, slicing ball-smiter who will never know the joy of producing a perfect golf stroke, born of sympathy and knowledge.

"The left hand should fill the position of guide."

What are we to say to the sorrowing seeker for the truth in golf? Which of these statements is correct? The answer is simple. Neither. Forget them both, and forget that you have a right and a left hand and leave them to adjust their power, which they will do in a perfectly natural manner if you learn the truth about them off the links and forget about it on the links.

Now, in this great question the truth. undoubtedly is that the right is the master, but it is quite unnecessary to have this in mind while making the stroke. Most golfers have far too much on their minds at this critical time. They are obsessed by vain theories instead of being free to direct their arms merely to smite the ball.

This may sound something like a reversal of form, coming from me. It really is not. I have always maintained that the golf drive is such a complex stroke, and is executed so rapidly, that it is utterly impossible for any one to perform the sequence of prescribed actions by virtue of consecutive thoughts applied each to its particular portion of the drive. In other words, most of the actions are subconscious or automatic, and therefore it is of the utmost importance for the player to acquire a correct habit, in order that his mind at the time of actual execution may be freed from a strain to which it is wholly unequal and to which no sane instructor would dream of subjecting it. Can any one point to any similarly ludicrous instructions in cricket, hockey, or base-ball books?

I must not be misunderstood in this matter, for it is really second only in importance to the question of the distribution of weight. Let me say, then, that as the right is undoubtedly the dominant partner in the golf drive, so must a predominance of the right be the dominant idea; but the domination of the right must not be abused. Indeed, at the time of making the stroke it must not be allowed to have any place whatever in one's mind.

every normal person to use his table-knife in his right hand. It becomes the absolutely natural proceeding.

The trouble with the fetish of the left is that not only is it a perfectly unnatural proceeding, but it is also, on that account, something extra for the golfer wherewith to cumber his mind during his swing. If he plays his stroke naturally, without any thought of the mismade maxims of unpractical persons, he will inevitably let the right hand and arm take charge of the stroke, though the right will not, generally speaking, endeavor to do more than its proper share. Indeed, if the stroke is otherwise good, the right cannot do too much; and therefore the left will nearly always be allowed to do its proportional share of the work. It is the interference with nature caused by putting the left forward into a place which it has no right to occupy that ruins many golf strokes.

Before leaving this subject, I may say that George Duncan, the famous young professional of Hanger Hill, England, at the time of the great controversy in London unreservedly supported my contention that the right is the master, and no professional of any reputation in England now dares to encourage belief in the old fetish of the left.

The false instruction to put one's weight on one's right foot at the top of the swing, coupled with the fetish of the left, is enough to spoil any one's game for years, for a lifetime indeed, unless one is fortunate enough to find out one's errors.

There is a most persistent idea in the minds of nearly all writers of golf-books that the wrists have some wonderful action which they perform at or about the time the club comes into contact with the ball. This is another case of pernicious teaching, for any attempt to introduce into the drive any wrist work at this moment must make for inaccuracy.

There is no doubt that a proper wrist action in the drive is of very great importance, and it is just as undoubted that the real secret of wrist action has been enshrouded in mystery by any one who has in any way attempted to deal with it. Indeed, so great a master of the game as James Braid candidly confesses, in "Advanced Golf," that he does not know where the wrists come in during the drive. Harry Vardon does not subscribe to the

common notion about the wrists. He says, "I do not believe in the long ball coming from the wrists," and he is inclined to ridicule the idea, saying, "Similarly there is a kind of superstition that the elect among drivers get in some peculiar kind of 'snap'-a momentary forward pushing movement-with their wrists at the time of impact."

Vardon calls this "a kind of superstition," and this describes the idea fairly accurately.

James Braid's remarks about this wrist. work are so wonderful that they are worth quoting. In "Advanced Golf" he

says:

Then comes the moment of impact. Crack! Everything is let loose, and round comes the body immediately the ball is struck, and goes slightly forward until the player is facing the line of flight. . . . That is the whole secret of the thing-the bursting of the tension at the proper moment— and really there is very little to be said in enlargement of the idea. At this moment the action of the wrists is all-important, but it cannot be described. Where exactly the wrists begin to do their proper work, I have never been able to determine exactly, for the work is almost instantaneously brief. Neither can one say precisely how they work, except for the suggestion that has already been made. It seems, however, that they start when the club-head is a matter of some 18 inches from the ball, and that for a distance of a yard in the arc that it is describing they have it almost to themselves, and impart a whip-like snap to the movement, not only giving a great extra force to the stroke [This is what Vardon calls "a kind of superstition"], but, by keeping the club-head for a moment in the straight line of the intended flight of the ball, doing much towards the ensuring of the proper direction. It seems to be a sort of flick-in some respects very much the same kind of action as when a man is boring a corkscrew into the cork of a bottle. He turns his right wrist back; for a moment it is under high tension, and then he lets it loose with a short, sudden snap. Unless the wrists are in their proper place, as described, at the top of the swing, it is impossible to get them to do this work when the time comes. There is nowhere for them to spring back from.