San Antonio light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1911-1993, 1923-04-07
FADING OF yellow PERIL"

Former Ambassador Charles B. War
ren's recital of Japan's recessions from
the Asiatic continent may surprise many
Americans. But qualification will be the
greatest result of his speech, delivered
before the Japan Society, New York, in
which he undertook to show that the
old grounds for suspicion had disap-
peared.
OF course the separate Withdrawals
of Japanese troops from the regions
they had been occupying were announced
in cable dispatches as the respective
moves were made. But not all readers
of newspapers keep written or even
mental records of such developments.
The average person goes by" impress
sions, and the deepest impression con-
corning Japan and her policies was that
her motives were Interior, sinister, preda-
tory; and the japanese, a tactiturn peo-
pie, with larger eyes and ears than
mouths, had said little to disarm sus-
picion, ether than to disavow any inten-
ton of laying predicate for future
trouble in the Far East.
Nothing else could be so reassuring to
Americans who have regarded Japan as
a potential menace to world peace as
her actions. as described by Mr.. Warren.
are likely to be-if they can only come
to an encompassing realization of those
actions and their international signifi-
canoe. That is the hard part-full reali-
cation of the fact that the concrete cause
OF the suspicious entertained against
Japan, her seizure and prolonged oc-.
cupancy of territory which did not be-
long to her, has been removed on her
own motion. When full realization does
come, the consequent expression OF graft
ticatlon by Americans and others over
Japan's conduct may produce in her
responsive attitude still more favorable
to the comfy of nations.
Possibly some of the Occidental sus-
picions concerning Japan were originally
not without actual basis in japanese in
tentions or ambitions. Some nations, like
some persons, regard public opinion as
the only limitation upon their conduct
But though the American-born ideals
that played such conspicuous role in
the World War have not been fulfilled
IN practice, it is not at all unlikely that
they produced .leaven which has been
working almost universally in various
ways. Americas refusal to become a
party to treaty that was framed in
the old spirit, and whose unfairness and
lmpracticability have since become man
ifest, has undoubtedly had a wholesome
effect upon foreign minds. By that re-
fusal the United States demonstrated
that its people were sincere in their pro-
fession OF the ideals for which they
fought
OF course no one knows whether Japan
would have grabbed everything within
her reach If an almost universal abomina-
ton of international cupidity and agrees
sion had not been created. The fact,
however, is that Japans Withdrawals
from territory not her own post-dated
the development of popular repugnance
to predatory policies.
Whether Japan has acted in pursuance
of original intentions of worthy nature,
or has become convinced by world events
since the war that honesty is the best
policy even when practiced merely as a
policy, is immaterial so long as she adj
heres to the course represented by her
evacuation of Hankow, Shantung, China,
Vladivostok, Nikolaievsk and other
places on the mainland of Siberia.