JAPANESE WEDDING CAUSES A RIOT.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 91, 13 May 1909, Page 4

JAPANESE WEDDING CAUSES A RIOT.

WHITE IiIHL -MOIiISED IN" CALIFORNIA, New York, .March 25. Tin' engagement of -Miss Helen Emery, the daughter of the Archdeacon of the Protestant Episcopal Diocese of California, to -Mr. ljuiigiro Aoki, a relative of Count Aoki, the famous Japanese, statesman and diplomat, has broken itp the Emery home. The engagement was announced at the height of the anti-Japanese agitation ill California, and Hiss Emery and her family were "cut'' by all their acquaintances. Archdeacon Emery tried every means to persuade hie daughter to give up her Japanese lover, but she refused, and her mother sided with her. They left their home at Cortcnuulera, a suburb of ,Sau Francisco, to-day to join Mr. Aoki at Sacramento, where he proposes to go into business. There was a remarkable scene at the railway station when the two women appeared. A crowd of several thousand people ivas waiting, and when they reached the station tliey were greeted with howls of i-age. jeers, and the coarsest abuse. Jiags of rice and other missiles 'were thrown at Ihem, and the situation became so Serious that finally the newspaper correspondents formed a guard and escorted the two women to the train. DETERMINED JUiIJJE.

Miss Emery issued a remarkable stateuie-.it te-dav, in which she declines that she loves Mr. Aoki and intends to marrv him.

"I will not speak of the horrible innuendoes hurled against me,'' nh ( , says'. "1 have scourged myself in the night for my love. J have anticipated all the epithets of abuse and all the blame which have befallen me. "A child cannot lose her father's love without heartbreak. Love came to me in sorrow and blossc iin tears. Again and again the question eanie to me whether I should sacriliee my father's happiness to obtain my own. lie all the dictates of duty and honor i should have tinned aside from my love to 63i cure the happiness of inv' parents, but 1 cannot, "f do not see why my union with a member of a race that is the antithesis of mine should be harmful. Quality, breeding, courtesy, honor, patriotism, and filial devotion are purls of the Japanese fharaeter just as much as of the American. "That the law of California forbids our marriage has no weight with inc. 1 know Hit- frothy, garrulous Calitornia lawmakers', and 1 consider them the last people in the world to be chosen as censors of ]>nblic morals. "Th 0 public outcry against us comes from unthinking people, who will have forgotten my existence in a week in their mad rush after some new sensation." Mr. Aelfi is a convert to Christianity who came to (he United States to study theology. He stayed at Archdeacon Emery'* house, and there met and ivV. in love with his' daughter.