Evening star., 1937-09-11


With Japan in collapse, Russia would
be free to stymie Germany. Britain
could raise her head again and Musso-
lini would Jump at bargain Ger
many. isolated and discouraged, would
be ripe for revolution.
But if Japan is successful. the
have" countries are finished Thus
Uncle Sam is on the spot He can
dissociate himself from Britain. aban-
don his old policy of maintaining
Russia on the Pacific and pull into a
shell. saying that the result doesn't
matter to him-or he can decide that
he must dictate the outcome, as he
did in 1916.
The white man winces when the fire
he took to Asia burns him.
West Supplied Tools to Japan.
We look on dumbfounded at the fast
and loose way the Asiatic man is play
ing with our tools of destruction We
whites forced him to adopt the use
of these tools to preserve his inde-
pendence from us and establish his
equality with US. We supplied them
to him for sordid profit.
In 1863 Western warships bonn
barded and then fired two japanese
cities-with scant regard for nom
combatants. Our own Admiral Perry
got what he wanted by bluff, but he
was prepared to shoot. Before that,
in China, Canton had been fired and
palaces at Peiping had been blown
up by the British and French, coming
from the other side of the earth to
enrich themselves, in part by opium
iZing a race.
The japanese learned first. When
he could kill as well as we could, we
admitted him to political equality.
But he faced economic starvation in
the machine age unless he could fence
in raw materials and markets as we
were doing. For time he hesitated
between a decision to join his fellow
sufferer China in resisting us and one
to join us in despoiling his old neigh
Dor. He made the fateful decision to
do the latter, becoming in Chinese
eyes a traitor TO his own race and
laying the groundwork for present
awful events.
But when he is called on the car
pet for bombarding noncombatants
he is impudent and scornful. He can
point to many instances such as the
British bombardment of Wanhsien,
far up the Yangtze River, as late as
1929 when British shipping was in
terfered with by river boatmen robbed
by British steam of their livelihood.
Three thousand civilian Chinese were
burned to death in that "chastise-
ment"
China Must Remain Gentleman.
1t is to the present interest of the
Chinese, on the other hand, to play
the gentleman. So he apologies
humbly for bombing the President
Hoover with an American bought
plane.
1t is against this background that
we must view the horrible events in
Asia if we would understand their
meaning TO us.
We need background, too in the
"close counseling" with Britain now
engaged in by our State Department.
Sir Arthur Willert, former propaganda
chief of the British foreign Office,
comes across frankly with: The Brit
ish government realizes now that it
is up against situation in the Far
East in which stark force is the ar
bitter = : the only thing that would
give the japanese pause is the knowl-
edge that the great powers, and espe-
cially the United States and Great
Britain, had decided to restrain them
by arms If necessary. But in any
such policy London cannot take the
lead" In other words, You first, my
dear Cousin SAM"
This should make us remember the
time in 1860 when the British we're
ish guns in China" but British land
ing force, caught in the mud below
Tientsin, nevertheless appealed for
our help, and United States COM
mander, Tatnall. coming the much
touted phrase Blood is thicker than
wster'-whatever that means-went
to their aid by turning his guns on
the Chinese defenders. That time
Washington called Tatnall and his
kind off, denoted the enthusiastic
commander and proceeded peacefully
to negotiate with the Peking throne.
Stimson Left on Limb.
Maybe this time our own interests
and future demand that we should
take advantage of England's loud re-
pentance for throwing down Secretary
Stimson in 1881, when the American
Secretary of State was promised Brit
live up to treaties, only to be left out
on a limb by Sir John Simon. Maybe
so-but If so. feel most Americans, it
should be because this is the best of
two bad alternatives for us. and not
merely because England, affectionate
now because she is desperate, wheedles
Cousin Sam to do her duty.
The United States is on the spot as
result of her own policies, as we'll
Our needless expansionism Of the
past century, not necessary to adequate
living for our people as in the cases
of England and Japan, has built up a
way of life which now we must either
protect or abandon-a way Of life in
which access to the worlds markets.
the sale Of kerosene to China, the dis
posal abroad of half our cotton crop,
are tremendous items.
At present we are not getting out Of
Pacific Asia, as Smedley Butler advo-
Gates. We are sending more Marines
and taking what is diplomatically
called q "Strnnp nOsitinnn Seruinn