On the Emperor’s birthday all offices, schools, banks, and large business houses are closed. The national flag is hoisted on all public buildings, schools, and on most of the private houses all over the country. High dignitaries, both civil and military, who are present in the capital, proceed to the Palace of Tokio to present before the throne their congratulations for the occasion, while those in the country and abroad send their congratulatory messages by mail through the Minister for the Imperial Household. In every school all over the country the day is observed in a form appropriate to the occasion. One hundred and one salutes are fired from every fort in the empire. The imperial review of the army is in regular order of the celebration of the day, when hundreds of thousands of the enthusiastic public gather around the drill-ground and all along the imperial route to cheer their august and beloved sovereign and to witness the glorious military parade of the day, while all of his Majesty’s ships fire twenty-one salutes (otherwise known as the national salute) and appear in full dress. The Emperor entertains in the palace at breakfast all the foreign representatives and high dignitaries of the empire. And now let us listen to what some of our prominent Americans, whose patriotism none can assail, have to say about our present-day observance. First “Mark Twain,” in whose heart of hearts the small boy is enshrined, and who certainly would not needlessly curtail even one of his little pleasures. Does he approve of our day of “burning” patriotism? No; for he has written to me: I am with you sincerely in your crusade against the bedlam frenzies of the Fourth of July. And William Dean Howells: I am glad that you have added to your noble and beneficent ambition to suppress all unnecessary noises the wish especially to deal with the barbarous and obstreperous celebration of the Fourth of July. I am sure that Confucius did not invent gunpowder, and that it was not Chinese _wisdom_ which gave us firecrackers. Until we cease to glorify our national birthday like a nation of lawless boys we shall have no right to claim that we have come of age, and the civilized world must regard us as savages until we stop behaving like them. And one of our poets: It is good news that you are turning your attention to the subject of the irrational manner in which Americans celebrate their independence. I am sure you will not merely advocate the suppression of meaningless noise, and that you will indicate such fêtes, ceremonies, pageants, and celebrations in general as are rational and instructive; also, that you will hint at a broader and more inspiring use of the day than either arousing old and debasing international enmities or the display of indecent self-glorification.