Now that the grave crisis confronting your
great country, despite the continuous effort of
Your Majesty's successive governments, has not been
solved in any essential respect, but is, on the con-
trary, becoming daily more menacing to the welfare
of your two people
of your people and to the peace between nations,
I deem that the time has come that I, as head of
the nation that has maintained with your country for
well-nigh a century relations unparalleled in his-
tory for their sincere cordiality, should address
myself directly to Your Majesty, in order to convey
to you and your people the earnest wishes that lie close
to the hearts of the American nation and its
government.

In doing so, I am following the precedents, also
unique in character, set by past Presidents of the
United States. I may cite two, among others. In
1905, my predecessor, Theodore Roosevelt, offered
his good offices to bring about the successful con-

clusion of an honorable treaty of peace between Japan and Russia, after your armed forces had achieved a brilliant series of victories on land and sea. A half century earlier, in 1852-53, another predecessor, Millard Fillmore, sent Commodore M.C. Perry with a personal message of goodwill addressed to Your Majesty's illustrious forefather, His Majesty, Emperor Komei. It is for us a constant source of gratification to recall that it was the auspicious issue of that mission that heralded the beginning of the happy relations between our two nations, and of the glorious career of your own in the new era.

Without the least desire on my part to interfere in any manner with your internal affairs, I may perhaps be permitted to remind Your Majesty how the advent of Commodore Perry just alluded to was followed by unexpected events that finally led to a serious crisis similar in many ways to the present one; and how your leaders surmounted it with undaunted courage and stupendous energy, enabling them in the ensuing years to carry your country, to the amazement of the world, in the broad path of enlightenment.

sponsibility to our own poplitical conscience, even as
the
Your Majesty's enlightened policy pursued till a short
sixty years after 1865
had been dictated by the conscience and
moral convictions of your illustrious nation. We,
the people and government of the United States, on
our part, while being obliged to follow our policies
seemingly unfavorable to your country, have never at any
moment

renounced our traditional friendship with her,
and have never ceased to pray for her resumption of
the honorable career which had been the object of
universal admiration and sympathy.

Believe me, Your Majesty, as I repeat that it is this
prayer of our nation, added to my personal solicitude
for your anxiety concerning the future of your beloved
nation and precious heritage, that prompts me to take
unusual
this bold step of addressing myself to you.

On the other hand, we, Your Majesty, cannot
help visualizing to ourselves what miraculous change
of general atmosphere would result from Japan's return
to the happy comity of nations. Your loyal people
would be relieved of the crushing burden weighing
upon their mind and body, for which they have hardly
been responsible; and all the nations near and far

would find themselves freed from the fears of continued and fresh calamities caused by what they cannot regard but as an unfortunate error. Every one would immediately comprehend and applaud so noble an act of complete self-conquest. It would be no vain prophesy to predict that many a foreign nation, the American not excepted, would come to feel that it could hardly do too much to cooperate with the courageous Japan in her work of rehabilitation. And, in years to come, one and all would welcome and rejoice in her growing prosperity and her increasing contributions to the progress of the common civilization on mankind, achievements of which she by her nature and talent is eminently capable.

Your Majesty, I am taking the liberty to publish this message at once, from my sincere wish that this public expression may resound to your people as a united voice of sympathy of the American nation.

(The following is a draft prepared for a
possible letter which I desired that President
Roosevelt address to the Emperor of Japan. Emphatic
points were marked for Mr. R's attention. The draft
was written on Nov. 23, and was placed in the hands
of the President, the Secretary of State, and some
others, at the end of the month.

(I had made this attempt, because I was certain
that there could never be any possibility of an
agreement between the two governments, except perhaps
a paltry compromise of no lasting value, so long as
the Japanese government held to its declared policies.
Both sides in the negotiation showed great patience,
but from what different motives from each other!
The sole motive of the Japanese government, at least
that of the present Cabinet, in continuing conversa-
tions at Washington was clearly to gain time to ob-
serve the trend of the European war, and in the mean-
time to perfect and execute some or other of its plans
of aggression as soon as an opportune moment came. The
only thing aimed at was an understanding that should
permit Japan to retain her gains in China and leave
her free to make fresh gains elsewhere. On such basis
there could be no remotest chance of winning American
consent. The fundamental obstacle was none other than
the insane policies to which the successive Cabinets
had been wedded, -- policies that were certain to
bring wide calamities, involving huge damage to the
world and a crippling of Japan for years to come.
The only possible salvation seemed to lie in a drastic
change of men and policies in Japan and a complete
return to her usual sanity of mind. There appeared
to be a bare chance of quickly mobilizing in that
direction the minds of many men already in secret
revolt against the conduct of government. It was
this slender opportunity that I wished to cultivate.

(The President did actually send a message to
the emperor, on Dec. 6; but its text was published
only on the 8th, the day after the hostilities had

- 2 -

begun and the relations had been severed. It utterly failed to achieve the aims I had wished. Nor was the message framed in a manner that could have succeeded.

(The text began in general terms, but contained no word evincing an appreciation of national characteristics and history or a sympathy for the predicament in which the sovereign and his nation had been put by his government. The message avoided, probably studiously, being a moving appeal for the nation's reversal of the unfortunate policies it had been driven to support against its will. Very unfortunately, the letter then changed its tenor, and dwelt exclusively on the sending of Japanese forces to Indo-China. It thus ended in making itself one of protest against a special act of the emperor's government, instead of one touching the responsive chord that should stir the nation to a heroic march to reason and sanity.

(If the contents of the letter had been known to the Cabinet, they could only have hardened its defiance of outside intrusion. But the text was not published, and held every one in anxious suspense. It was robbed of all opportunity to produce the desired psychological effects upon the popular mind, if it had been properly phrased. On the contrary, the government, on its part, could entertain dark suspicions of the President's motive as one possibly to counsel the sovereign to reverse the policies. Such suspicion may have seemed all the more justified after the receipt of Mr. Hull's letter of ten days before, with its coldly inflexible and denunciatory tone. It is not difficult to imagine how readily the government's resentment against the Secretary merged with its misgivings about the President's intentions. At the same time, the government may have felt the presence of another threat still nearer at hand. A few days before Mr. R's letter came, certain Ministers had been subjected to severe questioning at a session of the Privy Council. A sudden change of mind was possible in higher quarters; the conversations at Washington had been protracted long enough to enable the navy to mature its plans of attack. It was probably thus that

Now that the grave crisis confronting your
great country, despite the continuous effort of
Your Majesty's successive governments, has not been
solved in any essential respect, but is, on the con-
trary, becoming daily more menacing to the welfare
of our two peoples and to the peace between nations,
I deem that the time has come that I, as head of
the nation that has maintained with your country for
well-nigh a century relations unparalleled in his-
tory for their sincere cordiality, should address
myself directly to Your Majesty, in order to convey
to you and your people the earnest wishes that lie
close to the hearts of the American nation and its
government.

- 2 -

clusion of an honorable treaty of peace between
Japan and Russia, after your armed forces had
achieved a brilliant series of victories on land
and sea. A half century earlier, in 1852-3, another
predecessor, Millard Fillmore, sent Commodore M. C.
Perry with a personal message of goodwill addressed
to Your Majesty's illustrious forefather, His
Majesty, Emperor Komei. It is for us a constant
source of gratification to recall that it was the
auspicious issue of that mission that heralded the
beginning of the happy relations between our two
nations, and of the glorious career of your own in
the new era.

Without the least desire on my part to interfere
in any manner with your internal affairs, I may per-
haps be permitted to remind Your Majesty how the ad-
vent of Commodore Perry just alluded to was followed
by unexpected events that finally led to a serious
crisis similar in many ways to the present one; and
how your leaders surmounted it with undaunted courage
and stupendous energy, enabling them in the ensuing
years to carry your country, to the amazement of the

- 3 -

world, in the broad path of enlightenment. During
the still remoter past, also, your statesmen again
and again, especially from the middle of the seventh
century, demonstrated at critical moments a capacity
frankly to recognize their past errors, and to
institute in their place and to execute, swiftly and
surely, exhaustive measures of needed reform which
were at once idealistic and eminently practical.
Few nations past or present placed in a similar
position could have displayed a power so quickly
and so completely to return to their consciences,
to make so clean a sweep of the men and the policies
that had brought them to an impasse, and to discover
and carry out so clear-sighted, yet so practical
principles of government that should promote their
true interest and their historic missions in the
world. Nay more, what is particularly moving is
the candor and the whole-hearted loyalty with which
your multitudes understood and supported the reformed
policies initiated by your honored predecessors; and
the energetic common effort by which they, each time,
brought these policies to successful fruition, and

- '4 -

so turned a calamity into a glorious good fortune.
Such happy union of catholicity and idealistic
devotion, we should infer, must indeed be the
ancient spirit and genius of your great nation and
the secret of its unique history.

What the American nation observes in the Japan
of today is, Your Majesty, a crisis of like magnitude
to those of the past ages, fraught with even greater
perils besetting her way; and what our nation with
one accord prays is that Japan would again of her
free will recoil to her noble self, and again spring
forward with quick and sure leaps into the broad
common life, this time, of the liberal world whose
horizon is bound to widen immensely as soon as the
present war is cleared. This should be easy of
accomplishment for a nation so highly endowed by God
as is yours with candor and perspicacity; and perhaps
this time all the easier, in view of the plain fact
that, on the one hand, the crisis is of but a recent
origin, and consequently its roots are far shallower
than those of the crisis either of the last century
or of twelve hundred years before; and that, on the
other, the general course of conduct was nobly and

- 5 -

clearly indicated by your grandfather of blessed
memory, His Majesty, Emperor Meiji, and wisely
followed by your statesmen till only a decade ago.

I beg Your Majesty to understand that the
measures that our government has taken in the last
two years and the policy it has steadily followed,
in regard to your country, are but natural expressions
of our responsibility to our own political conscience,
even as the noble policy pursued by your government
during the six years after 1863 had been dictated
by the conscience and moral convictions of your il-
lustrious nation. We, the people and government of
the United States, on our part, while being obliged
to follow our policies seemingly unfavorable to your
country, have never at any moment renounced our
traditional friendship with her, and have never ceased
to pray for her resumption of the honorable career
which had been the object of universal admiration
and sympathy.

- 6 -

your beloved nation and precious heritage, that
prompts me to take this unusual step of addressing
myself to you.

On the other hand, we, Your Majesty, cannot
help visualizing to ourselves what miraculous change
of general atmosphere would result from Japan's return
to the happy comity of nations. Your loyal people
would be relieved of the crushing burden weighing
upon their mind and body, for which they have hardly
been responsible; and all the nations near and far
would find themselves freed from the fears of con-
tinued and fresh calamities caused by what they
cannot regard but as an unfortunate error. Every one
would immediately comprehend and applaud so noble an
act of complete self-conquest. It would be no vain
prophecy to predict that many a foreign nation, the
American not the least, would come to feel that it
could hardly do too much to cooperate with the
courageous Japan in her work of rehabilitation. And,
in years to come, one and all would welcome and
rejoice in her growing prosperity and her increasing
contributions to the progress of the common civiliza-
tion of mankind, achievements of which she by nature

- 7 -

1

(The following is a draft prepared for a possible letter which I desired that President Roosevelt address to the Emperor of Japan. Emphatic points were marked for Mr. R's attention. The draft was written on Nov. 23, and was placed in the hands of the President, the Secretary of State, and some others, at the end of the month.)

(I had made this attempt, because I was certain that there could never be any possibility of an agreement between the two governments, except perhaps a paltry compromise of no lasting value, so long as the Japanese government held to its declared policies. Both sides in the negotiation showed great patience, but from what different motives from each other! The sole motive of the Japanese government, at least that of the present Cabinet, in continuing conversations at Washington was clearly to gain time to observe the trend of the European war, and in the meantime to perfect and execute some or other of its plans of aggression as soon as an opportune moment came. The only thing aimed at was an understanding that should permit Japan to retain her gains in China and leave her free to make fresh gains elsewhere. On such basis there could be no remotest chance of winning American consent. The fundamental obstacle was none other than the insane policies to which the successive Cabinets have been wedded, -- policies that were certain to bring wide calamities, involving huge damage to the world and a crippling of Japan for years to come. The only possible salvation seemed to lie in a drastic change of men and policies in Japan and a complete return to her usual sanity of mind. There appeared to be a bare chance of quickly mobilizing in that direction the minds of many men already in secret revolt against the conduct of government. It was this slender opportunity that I wished to cultivate.)

(The President did actually send a message to the Emperor, on Dec. 6; but its text was published only on the 8th, the day after the hostilities had begun and the relations had been severed. It utterly failed to achieve the aims I had wished. Nor was the message framed in a manner that could have succeeded.)

(The text began in general terms, but contained no word evincing an appreciation of national characteristics and history or a sympathy for the predicament in which the sovereign and his nation had been put by his government. The message avoided, probably studiously, being a moving appeal for the nation's reversal of the unfortunate policies it had been driven to support against its will. Very unfortunately, the letter then changed its tenor, and dwelt exclusively on the sending of Japanese forces to Indo-China. It thus ended in making itself one of protest against a special act of the emperor's government, instead of one touching the responsive chord that should stir the nation to a heroic march to reason and sanity.)

(If the contents of the letter had been known to the Cabinet, they could only have hardened its defiance of outside intrusion. But the text was not published, and held every one in anxious suspense. It was robbed of all opportunity to produce the desired psychological effects upon the popular mind, if it had been properly phrased. On the contrary, the government, on its part, could entertain dark suspicions of the President's motive as one possibly to counsel the sovereign to reverse the policies. Such suspicion may have seemed all the more justified after the receipt of Mr. Hull's letter of ten days before, with its coldly inflexible and denunciatory tone. It is not difficult to imagine how readily the government's resentment against the Secretary merged with its misgivings about the President's intentions. At the same time, the government may have felt the presence of another threat still nearer at hand. A few days before Mr. R's letter came, certain Ministers had been subjected to severe questioning at a session of the Privy Council. A sudden change of mind was possible in higher quarters; the conversations at Washington had been protracted long enough to enable the navy to mature its plans of attack. It was probably thus that the government forestalled any possibility of dismissal by sending a reply to Mr. Hull more inflexible and insolent in language than his, and, before its delivery by its envoys, by at once committing an irrevocable act of war.)

Now that the grave crisis confronting your great country, despite the continuous
efforts of Your Majesty's successive governments, has not been solved in any essen-
tial respect, but is, on the contrary, becoming daily more menacing to the welfare of
our two peoples and to the peace between nations, I deem that the time has come that
I, as head of the nation that has maintained with your country for well-nigh a cen-
tury relations unparalleled in history for their sincere cordiality, should address
myself directly to Your Majesty, in order to convey to you and your people the earnest
wishes that lie close to the hearts of the American nation and its government.

In doing so, I am following the precedents, also unique in character, set by past
Presidents of the United States. I may cite two, among others. In 1905, my predeces-
sor, Theodore Roosevelt, offered his good offices to bring about the successful con-
clusion of an honorable treaty of peace between Japan and Russia, after your armed
forces had achieved a brilliant series of victories on land and sea. A half century
earlier, in 1852-3, another predecessor, Millard Fillmore, sent Commodore M. C. Perry
with a personal message of goodwill addressed to Your Majesty's illustrious fore-
father, His Majesty, Emperor Komei. It is for us a constant source of gratification
to recall that it was the suspicious issue of that mission that heralded the begin-
ning of the happy relations between our two nations, and of the glorious career of
your own in the new era.

Without the least desire on my part to interfere in any manner with your internal
affairs, I may perhaps be permitted to remind Your Majesty how the advent of Commodore
Perry just alluded to was followed by unexpected events that finally led to a serious
crisis similar in many ways to the present one; and how your leaders surmounted it with
undaunted courage and stupendous energy, enabling them in the ensuing years to carry
your country, to the amazement of the world, in the broad path of enlightenment. Dur-
ing the still remoter past, also, your statesmen again and again, especially from the
middle of the seventh century, demonstrated at critical moments a capacity frankly to
recognize their past errors, and to institute in their place and to execute, swiftly
and surely, exhaustive measures of needed reform which were at once idealistic and

-5-

eminently practical. Few nations past or present placed in a similar position could have displayed a power so quickly and so completely to return to their consciences, to make so clean a sweep of the men and the policies that had brought them to an impasse, and to discover and carry out so clear-sighted, yet so practical principles of government that should promote their true interest and their historic missions in the world. Nay more, what is particularly moving is the candor and the whole-hearted loyalty with which your multitudes understood and supported the reformed policies initiated by your honored predecessors; and the energetic common effort by which they, each time, brought these policies to successful fruition, and so turned a calamity into a glorious good fortune. Such happy union of catholicity and ideal-istic devotion, we should infer, must indeed be the ancient spirit and genius of your great nation and the secret of its unique history.

What the American nation observes in the Japan of today is, Your Majesty, a crisis of like magnitude to those of the past ages, fraught with even greater perils besetting her way; and what our nation with one accord prays is that Japan would again of her free will recoil to her noble self, and again spring forward with quick and sure leaps into the broad common life, this time, of the liberal world whose horizon is bound to widen immensely as soon as the present war is cleared. This should be easy of accomplishment for a nation so highly endowed by God as is yours with candor and perspicacity; and perhaps this time all the easier, in view of the plain fact that, on the one hand, the crisis is of but a recent origin, and consequently its roots are far shallower than those of the crisis either of the last century or of twelve hundred years before; and that, on the other, the general course of conduct was nobly and clearly indicated by your grandfather of blessed memory, His Majesty, Emperor Meiji, and wisely followed by your statesmen till only a decade ago.

-4-

even as the noble policy pursued by your government during the sixty years after 1868 had been dictated by the conscience and moral convictions of your illustrious nation. We, the people and government of the United States, on our part, while being obliged to follow our policies seemingly unfavorable to your country, have never at any moment renounced our traditional friendship with her, and have never ceased to pray for her resumption of the honorable career which had been the object of universal admiration and sympathy.

Believe me, Your Majesty, as I repeat that it is this prayer of our nation, added to my personal solicitude for your anxiety concerning the future of your beloved nation and precious heritage, that prompts me to take this unusual step of addressing myself to you.

On the other hand, we, Your Majesty, cannot help visualizing to ourselves what miraculous change of general atmosphere would result from Japan's return to the happy comity of nations. Your loyal people would be relieved of the crushing burden weighing upon their mind and body, for which they have hardly been responsible; and all the nations near and far would find themselves freed from the fears of continued and fresh calamities caused by what they cannot regard but as an unfortunate error. Every one would immediately comprehend and applaud so noble an act of complete self-conquest. It would be no vain prophecy to product that many a foreign nation, the American not the least, would come to feel that it could hardly do too much to cooperate with the courageous Japan in her work of rehabilitation. And, in years to come, one and all would welcome and rejoice in her work of rehabilitation. And, in years to come, one and all would welcome and rejoice in her growing prosperity and her increasing contributions to the progress of the common civilization of mankind, achievements of which she by nature and talent is eminently capable.