- 제목 : 《Japan Inside Out - The Challenge of Today》
- 저자 : 이승만 (Syngman Rhee, Ph.D)
- 출판사 : John Long (1941), Fleming H. Revell Company (Second edition, 1941)
- 발매일 : 1941년
- 쪽수 : 202p
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0. FOREWORD
0:1 At the outset, I want to say that my motive in presenting this volume was not for war but for peace. In this respect I have been often misunderstood. Some of my friends ask me now and then, while discussing Oriental problems, "Do you want the United States to go to war with Japan?" No. On the contrary, I wanted the United States to avert conflict with Japan by checking her, before it was too late. That is what I want to tell in this book.
0:2 I am a pacifist, in the general sense of the word, by temperament and religion. I was raised in a Confucian family and educated in a Confucian school. Confucius placed war beyond the pale of civilization, for the rule of force is the rule of barbarians.
0:3 Korea enjoyed a high standard of Oriental civilization for more than four thousand years. Peace was the guiding principle of the nation in philosophy, politics, and poetry, and it was the household word in its everyday life. The very name of the nation, given by its founder, Tan Kun, in 2317 B.C. and renewed by the ensuing dynasty, Ki Cha, 1122 B.C., was the Land of the Morning Calm (Peace). Instead of saying among themselves, "How do you do?" "Good-bye," etc., the Koreans say, "Are you in peace?" "Go in peace," "Peace be with you," etc. Born and raised in that atmosphere, I was naturally a man of peace.
0:4 But with the advent of Western civilization came the Western idea of military conquest and superior modern weapons of war. Japan, as an apt pupil of the West, soon equipped herself with the modern instruments and Western military mentality. When she was fully ready, she came, bowed, and asked for our good will by saying, "Please make friends with us, as we are your next-door neighbor. All the nations of the world throw their doors wide open to one another. They have international law and also international treaties to protect all nations, weak as well as strong. Please do not suspect, but trust, us."
0:5 The conservative Korean government, having a childlike faith in the treaties, by which all the leading powers promised to protect them in time of need, opened everything to the Japanese without preparing for national defense. It was in 1895, soon after the close of the first Sino-Japanese war, that I came to realize the danger and undertook to inform the nation of the imminent menace to our independent existence. I started the first daily newspaper in Korea, through the columns of which I did all I could to cause our people to know what the Japanese and the Russians, the two rival forces, were trying to do. In co-operation with many patriotic leaders, we succeeded in arousing a sufficient number of people to join with us in inaugurating a national defense program.
0:6 Unfortunately for Korea, the government was unable to understand the situation and tried to suppress the nationalist movement. After a long struggle between the conservative party and the nationalist party, the former succeeded in crushing the latter, and, consequently, I soon found myself, together with many others, landed in jail, where I spent nearly seven years.
0:7 When the Russo-Japanese war broke out in 1904, the nationalist party got into power temporarily, and they let me out of the prison. As I walked out of the old iron gate of Kamoksu, the Seoul prison, the Russian influence in the Korean court had crumbled. The Japanese, who won the moral support of the Western nations by posing as champions of the independence of Korea, were already tightening their death grip on the very life of that country, their ally. The new Korean government tried to send me as a special envoy to the United States for the purpose of asking the United States to "use its good offices" against Japan. But, to its dismay, the Korean government discovered that the Japanese had already closed every possible loophole and no direct appeal for help could be sent to the outside world. The Japanese, who had been known up to that time as friends of the Korean nationalist party, were closely watching me in every move I made. I managed to leave Korea hurriedly for America in early November, 1904. The Japanese did not know that I had brought with me several important diplomatic communications from Prince Min and General Hahn. That is, however, another story, for which I have no place here.
0:8 I make this personal reference in order to show that I was in a position to see from behind the scenes what was carefully kept from the gaze of the outside world. No clairvoyance or far-sighted statesmanship was required to foretell what was to come. In fact, every educated Japanese knew then, as they know now, what to expect, and when. The difference was that they would not tell.
0:9 Naturally, I attempted to tell many things to the American people. I soon discovered that the mass of the people in this country in 1905 were just as unaware of the situation as the Koreans had been ten years before. I discovered also that there were eminent Americans who were highly enlightened on the subject and were equally anxious to disseminate the facts to their fellow citizens, but they could do nothing because public sentiment was so overwhelmingly pro-Japanese that no one would believe that these unfavorable statements about Japan could be true. Consequently, our warnings were but voices in the wilderness.
0:10 To refer to Korea again. If the Koreans had seen Japan in 1894 as they saw her in 1592, the year of Hideyoshi's unsuccessful invasion of Korea, they could have saved their country and themselves from the plight in which they find themselves today. On the other hand, if the American people had seen Japan in 1894 and 1904 as they see her today, they would have looked askance at Japan's annexation of Korea, and would have tried to meet Japanese expansion of sea power, which now offers a powerful threat on the other side of the Pacific.
0:11 These painful experiences are reviewed here in the hope of warning the United States to watch Japan. Therefore, I believe all Americans should know what they are now confronting. They should know that the things which they could have averted years ago by saying a few simple words or showing a firm attitude at the right time cannot be averted so easily now. This problem must be settled, and the sooner it is settled the better.
0:12 Postponement is not a settlement. The forest fire will not extinguish itself. It is drawing nearer day by day. Years ago you heard but faint whispers of impending trouble. It was so far away. It seemed as if it might be on Mars, or some other planet. Later on, you saw columns of smoke rising at a distance, or perhaps a glow of the flames reflected on the clouds, or, at times, even heard the roaring or crackling of burning trees. Yet it was still far enough away to cause you no worry or alarm. Now that is all changed. You already begin to feel the heat. It is coming too close for your comfort. You must move from your own home or your own business because it is dangerous for you to ignore it longer. You must give up the international settlements in the Orient. You must lose your business investments, mission stations, universities, hospitals, and any and all other institutions that are yours. You must not carry on war games in the Pacific, because the Japanese say that the Pacific is their "back yard." You do not know what to do with the Philippine Islands, because the Japanese may want them. You must not fortify or even talk about fortifying any of your island outposts, because the Japanese will object. And that is not all. Even in your own homeland, you must not enact any law to regulate the influx of their nationals, because they say it is an insult to their race. And when they deliberately bomb and sink your ships, you must not criticize them, because they are a proud and sensitive race and their feelings may be hurt. These are some of the things which have actually been happening. Can you still believe the forest fire is far away? Can you still say "Let the Koreans, the Manchurians, and the Chinese fight their own fight; it is none of our business"?
0:13 In this book I will endeavor to answer these perplexing questions. The answers will be found, perhaps, not in what I say, but rather in the events which have actually taken place. With this in view, we will not interest ourselves in the Sino-Japanese conflict as a whole, but only in a certain phase of the conflict that affects foreigners in general and Americans in particular.
0:14 As the ever advancing, irresistible war machine moves along, it leaves in its wake the wreckage of civilization and humanity. It keeps on moving to more and greater destruction. A terrified world stands aghast and asks, "Why and what does all this mean? Why are they doing all this?" It means just this: the Mikado in the East and the Fascists and Nazis in the West are bent on conquering the world. As they have great mechanized armies, they believe they are destined to rule the world.
Ⅰ. JAPAN'S "DIVINE MISSION" AND WAR PSYCHOLOGY
1:1 In order to save democracy, the American people must face the world situation and act quickly, and co-operate with all the peoples of the world struggling to retain their liberty or to regain their lost freedom. The United States must take an active, leading part in all the great world issues which involve the peace and safety, not only of the Western Hemisphere, but of the world. There will be no peace and safety in the world so long as it remains half democratic and half totalitarian. It must be one or the other. The maintenance of democracy in the world depends upon how the American people act at this time. It is a tremendous task, to be sure. It would have been much easier even a decade or two ago, but the Americans have been sleeping, while the totalitarian nations were preparing. If America insists on continuing with a false idea of peace, there will be no escape.
1:2 The American government and the people are, at last, partly awake and are now pushing ahead with necessary material preparations as fast as possible. Yet material equipment alone is not sufficient. The importance of preparing the American public to meet the inevitable and unavoidable menace cannot be overestimated. Japan knew long ago the value of mental power and has been busily engaged in training the nation's mind. Today she is far superior to any nation in the world, except Germany, in the development of war psychology. Some of the ideas expressed here sound fantastic and ridiculous to practical Western minds. It seems incredible for the people of a "modernized" nation to believe in such incongruous and mythical fabrications, but the point is that they do believe them, and millions are willing and ready to die to prove their faith. With this spiritual equipment, plus an “invincible" army and navy, they are determined to conquer the world. We who are trying not to be conquered should take special interest in studying the idea of "divinity" back of Japanese rulers.
1:3 The Japan Advertiser printed a translation of an editorial in the Japanese vernacular newspaper Niroku on May 9, 1919, as follows:
1:4 The title "Emperor" for their ruler is a misnomer. The Japanese do not call him emperor, but Tenno, the Heavenly King. Every time they mention this word Tenno[1], they bow their heads or doff their hats. They do not class him with the emperors and kings of nations. He is above them all. He is a superior being. His sanctity is proclaimed in all official statements, in the national history for every school. Scholars, philosophers, lawyers, and writers, all teach and preach this all-important doctrine. Even great Christian leaders educated in the West, such as the late Inazo Nitobe, declare the ruler of Japan is "the bodily representative of Heaven and Earth."
1:5 More ardent patriots trace the divine origin to the creation of the earth. According to this tale of Japanese mythology, the gods Izanagi and Izanami united in marriage and gave birth to the Japanese islands. The islands, therefore, are different from the rest of the earth. Then they gave birth to the sun goddess Amaterasu, whose direct descendant became the ruler of Japan. The first emperor was the deity Jimmu Tenno. The story of the birth of the Japanese Islands related in The Japanese Nationalist Bible is as follows:
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1:7 This is by no means the end of the divinity story. Japanese divinity does not stop with the Emperor and the land. The people are also a part of it. The aborigines of Japan were all gods and goddesses, and from them descended the present Yamato race, Seed of the Sun. All other mortals are of lower orders. From the divine descent of the Japanese people "proceeds their immeasurable superiority to the natives of other countries in courage and intelligence,"
1:8 Every Japanese is taught to believe he is more or less a god, because he belongs to this divine race, Yamato. Every child grows up with the belief that (1) Japan's Emperor is the only divine ruler, (2) Japan is the only divine land, (3) Japan's people are the only divine people and, therefore, Japan must be the light of the world. A soldier who dies in battle, or a patriot who sacrifices his life for the Emperor, automatically becomes a full god and joins the great family of gods in the Lotus heaven. The so-called Imperial Genealogy was invented about 700 A. D. and completed only seventy years ago, when the Shogunate was abolished and the Emperor was restored to power. How the story originated matters very little to the Japanese. All now believe in the divinity of their Emperor, their land, and their people. No doubt this is the great uniting and driving force behind the Japanese race- "each unimportant in himself but all together omnipotent." In this sense, "Japan is a war machine of seventy million gods." In recent years, while all other faiths have been crumbling, this Shintoistic doctrine has grown supreme. The government has ordered the Christian churches in Japan and Korea to transfer administrative responsibility to the Japanese and has imposed other restrictions. In a wireless dispatch to The New York Times from Tokyo, on August 28, 1940, Hugh Byas wrote, in part:
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1:10 We who believe in the freedom of religion may have no business to dig into other people's religious faith. If they want to believe that their Emperor, land, people, and even all the living creatures in Japan are divine, it is their privilege and we have nothing to say. After all, the theory of the divine origin of man sounds better than the Western idea of evolution from anthropoid ancestry. Let them believe, to their hearts' content, that they are superior because of their heavenly origin. But that is not all. It is the basis of their claims to the world domination under the rule of their Mikado. Since their Mikado is the only heavenly king, the logical conclusion is that he is the only rightful ruler of the universe, and that his army and navy are sent to save the world. There should be but one sun in all the heavens and but one ruler in all this mundane sphere. World peace, so much desired, can be obtained only through Japanese sovereignty. It is Japan's heaven-ordained mission to establish "a new order in Asia," and that is why "Japan is the only stabilizing force in the Far East." At present it is the part of caution that the Japanese modify their claims by confining themselves to Asia and the Far East. But they will soon extend "the new order in Asia" to "a new world order," and "a stabilizing power in the Far East" to a "stabilizing power on the entire earth." The Imperial rescript of Emperor Jimmu, which, according to the Japanese military textbook, "has been given to us an everlasting and categorical imperative," says, "We shall build our capital all over our dominion, because we are ordained by heaven to save the entire world from chaos and ruin."
1:11 Yosuke Matsuoka, then chief of the South Manchurian Railways, stated in 1931: "It is my conviction that the mission of the Yamato race is to prevent the human race from becoming devilish, to rescue it from destruction and lead it to the world of light." Count Futara recently declared in the House of Peers that the racial spirit of Japan alone can save the world from the chaos into which it has fallen. Japanese vernacular newspapers unhesitatingly claim that the souls of their dead soldiers, deified by the Emperor in special ceremonies, are fighting with the living in the invasion of China today. The wind that changed its direction just in time to enable the Japanese troops to land in Shanghai was believed to be an act of their gods, as they were engaged in a "holy war to bring together all the races of the world into one happy accord." which "has been the ideal and national aspiration of the Japanese since the very foundation of our empire.... We also aspire to make a clean sweep of injustice and inequality from the earth and to bring about everlasting happiness among mankind...." Therefore, according to their interpretation, their crusade is being waged against all the unholy elements of the West. In that sense, their war against the West is not only military, but essentially religious and political.
1:12 Religiously, we have already seen the crusade against foreign missionaries and Christian churches to establish the Shintoistic idea of emperor worship as the supreme national religion. This war will be waged in all the territories under their control so long as they are left unchecked. In their philosophy of life, there should be but one supreme religion; two or more religions or religious ideas, conflicting with one another in one nation, destroy peace. So the proposed new order is a crusade against freedom of religion.
1:13 Politically, the democratic idea of freedom and equality is diametrically opposed to the Japanese system of government. The ruling class, belonging to heaven, must be as high as the heavens above the mass of people. No individual liberty can be allowed to disrupt this order of nature. According to this principle of government, freedom of the press and freedom of speech are just as dangerous to the political organism of Japan as poison is to the human lung. Openly to criticize or condemn the chief executive of a nation, as is done in America, is unheard of in Japan. The practice of strikes as a part of the recognized exercise of individual rights is regarded as an evil in the social and economic life of the nation. To call the head of a nation a "public servant" and to call his official residence the White House instead of a white palace is a sign of confusion and disorder. This and many other things must be destroyed, because they are part of democratic principles and as such influence some Japanese liberals and the people of subject races against the imperial rule of Japan. In this sense, the Japanese crusade is being waged against the democratic system of government in America.
1:14 In the light of all their wonderful achievements during the last half century, there is small wonder that they became cocky. They are human, like the rest of us. They are a small folk, small in body and brain, circumscribed in their small island world for centuries. Suddenly the heavens opened like a fairy story and they were brought face to face with a new world, new civilization, and new ways of life. A fish raised in a bowl suddenly dropped into a vast lake could not feel freer. The most wonderful of all was that the new war instruments of civilized man, with all his military tactics and technics, tumbled into their laps as if from heaven above. Note how many military victories they have scored since! How can they help being megalomaniac? Are they not "invincible"? The entire world was united in singing their praises. If they told the nations to shut their eyes and see nothing but what they showed them, the world, with all its education and intelligence, would fail to see the traps and snares carefully laid for them. Abraham Lincoln's famous saying, "You cannot fool all the people all the time," does not seem to hold true here. The Japanese have been fooling the people for the last half century, and now, at last, they have thrown off their sheep skin and revealed their wolf fangs. A large part of the world still refuses to believe. Yet have not Japanese been insulting the flags of the Western Powers, which the Western peoples salute and respect as the sacred emblems of their respective nations? Have not Japanese militarists been kicking, ripping, slapping, and destroying the lives and properties of the citizens of the United States and of Great Britain for the last three years in China, not to mention what they did before? But the Western Powers are apparently helpless, and their long-established supremacy is crumbling before the armies of the Mikado. It is the gods, the ancestors of their rulers, who brought about these wonderful things in the past and who hold many more wonderful things in store for them, the Japanese believe.
1:15 Out of this Shintoistic mysticism they have gradually developed a peculiar psychology of war combined with an extreme sense of patriotism. Having been confined in their island world ever since the creation, and their every attempt to secure a foothold beyond the seas during all the past centuries having been frustrated by the people of the mainland of Asia, their hereditary national ambition was naturally a military conquest overseas. The wish is father to the thought. Out of their wish they developed this war-making mentality, which, in turn, produced the proud warrior race of the Samurai. Later, the opening of the country to intercourse with the Western Powers brought into their minds the idea of nationalism and patriotism which was highly developed in the Western world. While adopting all the Western ideas of life, they accepted chauvinism unreservedly and gave to it the place formerly held by the idea of loyalty to their feudal lords which prevailed in the old days of the Shogunate.
1:16 Side by side with the Shintoistic idea of emperor worship has grown the "cult of war." With national expansion as its objective, the practice of warrior worship has become almost a religion. Born and raised in that atmosphere, and educated and inculcated with patriotic militarism, every Japanese has the same attitude toward the Emperor and the Empire-to die for them is the highest glory on earth. What effect these teachings have on their everyday life can be seen in the following few excerpts from The Literary Digest of July 18, 1936:
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1:18 As a result of the famous Young Army Revolution of 1936, sixteen army officers and one civilian were executed by firing squads. The verdict of the court was based, not on the crime of assassinating their government Ministers, but on their refusal to obey the Emperor's command to surrender. Their crimes were condoned on the ground that they were committed with noble and patriotic motives. The son of Takahashi, the eighty-one-year-old statesman assassinated by the army revolutionists, when interviewed, expressed his sentiments in the following words:
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1:20 When they were summoned to yield, one captain killed himself and another shot himself in the head, but failed to die. All the 123 convicted men were members of ultra-patriotic societies which abound in Japan to study, pray, and plan methods of leading their empire to a higher destiny.
1:21 As late as January 5, 1941, Japanese Foreign Minister Matsuoka declared in a radio address to Japanese communities abroad, mainly in the South Sea islands, that "...this is not my desire alone; it is the desire of all Japanese. The ideal of the founder of our empire -'all mankind under one roof'- should be made the ideal of all mankind... Those ideals are interwoven into our alliance with Germany, which is the guiding spirit of our foreign policy."
1:22 So far, we have seen clearly that this formidable army of teeming millions, mechanically and mentally equipped, are forcing themselves rapidly and irresistibly upon the world. In addition, they are capable of using one group of white nations against another group to exhaust, if not destroy, all the major Powers of the West. The Western Powers, selfish and jealous of one another, believing that they are serving their own purposes, are only serving the purpose of those who desire to conquer them all.
1:23 However, the war lords in Tokyo, overconfident of the invincibility of their army and the divinity of their rulers, have overlooked one vital factor in their calculation. They have failed to take into consideration the latent power of resistance they have unconsciously created in the hearts of their conquered peoples. Twenty-three million Koreans at their own doorstep are today their bitterest enemies. Disarmed and disorganized, they have constantly broken out in open revolts, despite the barbarous Japanese methods of suppression and repression. They will rise again in a nation-wide revolution at the first opportunity, as they did in the Passive Uprising of 1919. The 450,000,000 Chinese, once reputed to be hopelessly divided among themselves, are today standing as one man in resisting the Japanese. These miracles have been achieved by the Japanese themselves. The two nations, China and Korea, were hereditary allies, and now their alliance has been renewed. All they need is a sufficient supply of war machines and war materials. It has already been demonstrated that as long as they have weapons with which to fight, they can take care of the Japanese.
1:24 To utilize this enormous man power, by furnishing it with supplies, is to keep the United States out of war, so far as the Pacific is concerned. The open Japanese threats of war against the United States are only a bluff. They know too well that it would be suicidal for them to plunge into war with the United States, while Great Britain and China are menacing the Axis line-up from both ends. Adequate and continued material assistance to China will now, without doubt, keep Japan too deeply engrossed to consider further conquest. "Armageddon," which I saw in its embryo thirty-five years ago and against which I have been trying all these years to warn the American people, may thus be averted.
Ⅱ. TANAKA MEMORIAL
2:1 Cooped up in a small group of islands, Japan's traditional ambition has been territorial expansion. Korea and China knew it. For the peace of the Far East they had their own traditional policy, which was to keep the islanders in their own islands. Japan's repeated invasions of Korea as first steps toward the conquest of the mainland of Asia met with failure. The last and most destructive war of Hideyoshi, "the Napoleon of Japan," 1592, although he was completely defeated by the Sino-Korean allied armies, left Korea so helplessly devastated that it never completely recovered. From that time on to 1876 the isolation of Korea was so air-tight that not a Japanese or Chinese was allowed to enter the country without special permit. Thus the Land of the Morning Calm managed to maintain its calm and earned its sobriquet, the "Hermit Kingdom."
2:2 The warriors of the Samurai race, though defeated and repulsed by the allied troops of Korea and China after the Hideyoshi invasion,
never ceased to cherish their dream of "world conquest." Their idea of the world never extended beyond the continent of Asia, "within the Four Seas."
2:3 The new era altered all this by bringing the West to meet the East. At first, the East resisted. It soon discovered, to its great surprise, a superior civilization beyond "the Four Seas" and bowed. While the Chinese and Koreans, scholarly minded, were beginning to study Western philosophy, literature, and religion in comparison with theirs, the ambitious Samurai saw at once the superiority of the lethal weapons of the Westerners and adapted them to their own purposes. Slowly the wish to adopt and equip themselves with these modern armaments so as to conquer the world dawned in their minds as the rising sun dawns on their islands.
2:4 In 1894, Japan suddenly attacked China, unprepared and unsuspecting, and with the aid of new weapons and of the United States and Great Britain, she came near to the realization of her traditional dream by defeating the giant Empire of China. Flushed with victory, she rushed secret preparations for another war, and in 1904 she was ready to tackle Russia. Prior to the outbreak of this war, the Japanese government proposed, and the Korean government agreed, to sign a defensive and offensive alliance, by which Korea was to open the Peninsula for the Japanese troops to march through, and by which Japan solemnly pledged to withdraw her troops from Korea when peace should be restored. With that understanding, a Korean national army marched side by side with the Japanese army to fight the Russians in Manchuria. When the war was over, however, Japan, in open violation of her pledged words, filled the country with her victorious army returning from the China border and betrayed her ally by robbing it of its independence and robbing its people of their land. In 1910, she declared the formal annexation of Korea.
2:5 This act of international banditry and outlawry was perpetrated by Japan with the full sanction and approval of the civilized nations of the world which had solemnly pledged themselves to help Korea in time of need. The first of these treaties was signed between the United States and Korea in 1882. The first article of this treaty contained what is known as the amity clause, which reads as follows:
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2:7 All the leading European powers, following the example of the United States, made commercial treaties with Korea. Each of these treaties included the amity clause. They have never been abrogated, nor their legality questioned. In 1905, only twenty-three years later, the United States used its "good offices," not for Korea, according to its treaty covenants, but for Japan, which was dealing "unjustly and oppressively" with Korea in open violation of her sacred promise. This was the spark which started the conflagration.
2:8 During the World War, the German government was universally condemned for calling international treaties "scraps of paper," but Germany was only practicing what the American government did nine years before. It is highly significant that such a tiny little fire -a flame of international injustice -started in a remote corner of the earth, has spread so rapidly that many nations in the West, as well as those in the East, have been reduced to ruin and others are threatened with the same fate. The very nation whose violation of her treaties with Korea the United States condoned is now violating all the treaties and agreements she has made with the United States. And now the American people are facing a peril to their peace and security which, all unwittingly, they helped to create.
2:9 As early as 1895, soon after Japan's victory over China, I heard the Japanese talking about Dai Dong Hap Bang (the United States of the Great East), under the hegemony of Japan of course. And later I read a book under the title of Il Mi Chun Chang Mi Rai Ki (Japanese-American War in the Future). I have in my possession now a book written in Japanese by a high Japanese naval authority, predicting a war between the United States and Japan. I picked it up from the bookcase of a Korean family in San Francisco in 1934.
2:10 The great victories they won were bound to have an effect on the minds of the Japanese. They began to believe that they were invincible. The whole nation was convinced that so long as it was trained and equipped, it could carry its conquests in the West as well as in the East. Out of this national dream came into existence what was later known as the Tanaka Memorial. The idea of world conquest, as incorporated in that document, was by no means new. It was the nation's hereditary ambition put into new language, with its scope widened. This policy, which was made familiar to every Japanese, so that the whole nation would be solidly behind it, was to be kept from the knowledge of Westerners, especially Americans. That is why the Japanese have vigorously denied the authenticity of the Tanaka document. They may deny as they wish. Their actions speak more loudly than their words.
2:11 According to Mark J. Gayn, whose article appeared under the topic, "Japan's Blue Print," in The Washington Post on April 10, 1941,
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2:17 Baron Tanaka's secret memorial is to Japan what Hitler's Mein Kampf is to Germany. Both were written, not as prophecy, predicting what would come to pass, but as a military blue print for remapping the world. Hitler knew that the world would not take his book seriously, and if it did, he did not care. Millions read it and scoffed at the audacity of a madman. Meanwhile, he went ahead, step by step. Europe is now under his thumb.
2:18 Baron Tanaka, on the other hand, knew that Japan had to move stealthily until she was strong enough to come out in the open. For that reason he kept the memorial secret. One copy of the document was smuggled out of Japan and made public. The American people were not prepared to accept it as a revelation of Japan's military aims. Most Americans disregarded it, just as most Europeans disregarded Hitler's book. The Japanese official denial of its authenticity was taken as a statement of fact.
2:19 However, the world situation has altered rapidly during recent years. The continents of Europe and Asia are being remapped, with no end of the process in sight. Great changes have taken place. They are a partial realization of Baron Tanaka's predictions. Certain statements in the memorial are very significant:
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2:21 In the light of the Sino-Japanese conflict, it is all too evident that the complete subjugation of China is an integral part of Japan's design. Although she is still far from succeeding in that grandiose scheme, its repercussions are shaking the world.
2:22 Whenever militarists overestimate their own power, it is the beginning of their downfall. The Japanese are no exception. They were so sure of their invincibility that they made two great blunders in their China campaign.
2:23 First, they failed to estimate correctly the latent but awakening spirit of Chinese patriotism. Japanese bomb and machine-gun raids, more than anything else, achieved the miracle. They aroused in the Chinese a determined spirit of unity and resistance. The mighty Nipponese army bogged down. In the main, invasion, so far, has succeeded little beyond the coast. It should be recalled that when Japan was about to unmask herself in 1936, she was ready to spring upon any of the major powers of the West. Russia's timely preparation for her defense along the Siberian border forced the Japanese to change their tactics and attack China. An easy victory in China would have enabled them to launch a major campaign against the United States with all the man power and material resources of a conquered China at their command. The plan was to be executed while Hitler and Mussolini were confining British resistance to Europe and the Mediterranean, thus furnishing a heaven-sent opportunity for Japan to stab the United States in the back. A sudden attack on America, while Americans were unprepared and unaware, would have put Japan in an advantageous position for carrying on the rest of the campaign. But first it was necessary to subjugate China.
2:24 Second, the Japanese started too soon to close the "Open Door." Made overconfident by their quick successes early in the undeclared war on China, they undertook at once to oust all white men and their businesses, and to make Japanese control over China complete. They knew well enough that no Western Power, or Powers, would go to war with them in order to maintain the "Open Door," and measures short of war did not much concern them. But their calculations were wrong. If, instead of adopting this terrorist method, they had patiently followed the slow-moving, underhanded process which they had used so effectively in seizing Korea, they would doubtless have met with greater success. When her forces were entering Korea thirty-five years ago, Japan was under the leadership of shrewd, far-sighted statesmen of the old school. They knew that they were in need of the moral and material support of the great nations of the West and dared not do anything that would arouse indignation or suspicion against them. They took great pains to make friends with all foreigners, missionaries, newspapermen, and others, and to such an extent that most of the foreigners openly supported them in their efforts to bring Korea under their domination. When they succeeded in that, the Japanese employed all sorts of underhanded schemes, by which means they gradually got rid of all the foreigners. If they had made use of this slow process in their China campaign, they would have succeeded in keeping the American people unsuspecting and unprepared.
2:25 The Japanese, however, like all other militarists, believed that force was a short cut to success, and set out to prove it. As a result, the bombing raids upon unprotected civilian sectors in China revealed to the American people, perhaps for the first time, the real purpose of the Japanese army, while the wanton destruction of the lives and property of foreigners in China served as an eye-opener to Americans, who began to see the real Japanese menace threatening the peace of the Pacific. The growing sympathy for China and suspicion of Japan in America gradually crystallized into a national policy of giving China all the material support needed in her life or death struggle against Japan. Thus American material help steadily found its way to the Chungking government, enabling them to keep up their resistance and also encouraging and helping the morale of the Chinese armies. Naturally, anti-American feeling among the Japanese also has been considerable.
2:26 Meanwhile, Hitler, on the other side of the world, also failed to score a quick success in his London raids. Contrary to the Fuehrer's prediction of the fall of London at the beginning of autumn, 1940, the British, unlike the French, refused to collapse. There, again, it was American material support which enabled the British to continue their fight with greater vigor and determination. Thus the Germans and Japanese find themselves face to face with the United States. From their standpoint, then, it is the United States that stands in their way, of course. Under these circumstances, it is perfectly natural for the United States to furnish munitions and war supplies for the Chinese and Koreans to fight the Japanese in the Far East, and to give similar help to the British against the Germans, thus keeping America's first lines of defense far away from her shores. Is it not the policy of wisdom to keep war away from the American door rather than to fight on the American doorstep?
2:27 The United States, fully aware of the situation, turned over to Great Britain fifty old destroyers in exchange for the lease of defense bases in some of the British colonial possessions in the Western hemisphere. At the same time, an American loan of $25,000,000 to China was a manifestation of the fact that the American government and the American people had come to a realization of the impending danger.
2:28 The Axis group has been co-operating in a sort of loose alliance. Knowing that Americans were still endeavoring to remain out of war, they have constantly played on that policy with veiled threats, hoping thus to frighten America into cutting off aid to Britain and China. On September 26, 1940, The Japan Times suggested a plan for settlement of Pacific problems on the basis of a triple alliance among the United States, Japan, and Germany, with the following comment: "Japan is finally convinced that the United States stands unalterably opposed to her legitimate expansion in the Orient and she can be expected to give Germany active support if America enters the European war."
2:29 Japan finally decided to take all the risks in pursuing her "Greater East Asia" policy by making a formal alliance with Berlin and Rome on September 27, 1940. She gambled on Germany's winning the war before the United States could be ready. The pact was meant as a warning to the United States. Article III states that Japan, Germany, and Italy undertake to assist one another with all political, economic, and military means when one of the three contracting parties is attacked by a power not at present involved in the European war or in the Sino-Japanese conflict. Article IV states: "Any state that attempts to interfere in the closing phase of the wars which seek a solution of European problems or those of Eastern Asia will run afoul of the combined determined forces of 250,000,000 people." It is significant that Japan's usual phrase of "East Asia" is now "Greater East Asia." How soon will the latter change again? Each new term brings Japan nearer to America.
2:30 Foreign Minister Yosuke Matsuoka, in a broadcast on October 10, 1940, declared:
2:31 Prince Konoe said to newspapermen on October 6, 1940:
2:32 In reference to Article III, which may compel the Japanese navy to attack the United States, he said, "In such case, Japan would cut off American supplies, and force the United States to take an offensive under disadvantageous conditions."
2:33 The nationalist leader, Seigo Nakano, said in Nichi Nichi:
2:34 Thus Japan, almost in desperation, burst into open intimidation as a last resort. She had employed this method constantly in the past, though not so boldly and menacingly, and had always been rewarded with magical success. Such stock phrases as "great eventualities" and "grave consequences," which her diplomats and propagandists used with gusto in former times, were not strong enough on this occasion. Therefore, both the Premier and the Foreign Minister, for the first time in the history of American-Japanese diplomacy, openly and officially asserted, in the form of newspaper interviews, that Japan "would declare war on the United States." This direct intimidation produced an adverse effect in America. Of course,and as usual, pro-Japanese elements in the United States used this reaction as an occasion publicly to criticize the government for "dragging the United States into war." But the general public was indignant, and some called it "an open insult," while others referred to it as a "virtual ultimatum." From the standpoint of America's national defense, the action of the Tokyo-Berlin gangsters in shaking their fists at America from the East and the West at the same time was probably just the thing some Americans needed to open their eyes to the facts. Those who had a vague idea of Germany's ultimate design to attack the Western hemisphere, but still refused to believe Japan had any such ambition, now began to give whole-hearted support to the national defense program. This conviction of the inevitability of an ultimate United States-Japanese clash, together with the rising tide of anger in America against Japanese incidents in China, convinced most Americans that "the sooner we have a two-ocean navy the better."
Ⅲ. JAPAN READY TO UNMASK HERSELF
3:1 Soon after the Japanese army had completed its invasion of Manchuria, followed by the inauguration of a puppet regime, the whole Japanese nation was profoundly stirred by the demand for revision of the naval treaty with the United States and Great Britain. The government and the people were all one in this demand, and were so clamorous and obstreperous in making it heard that there was no mistaking the meaning of the widely circulated statement that "the years 1935-1936 were to be the most critical in the history of the Island Empire."
What did all this mean? Why the "crisis"?
It meant simply this:
3:2 The years 1935-1936 would be the time when Japan's secret preparations for war would reach their peak, and when Japan would unmask herself and take the world by surprise. In other words, her material preparations, which took many years' hard, secret work, were about to be completed, and the nation should now be mentally and spiritually prepared to see it through when the time came. Every Japanese understood it clearly and was expecting something significant to be put under way during these years. Therefore, the question of the revision of the naval treaty was taken up as a preliminary step toward the final showdown.
3:3 The 1921 Washington Conference, which decreed the 5-5-3 naval ratio, with the London revision of 1931 to 10-10-7, was to be either renewed or revised again at the end of 1936. Beginning in 1933, three years before the expiration of the term of the treaty, the Japanese government started a nation-wide agitation which resulted in demanding the revision of the ratio formula. The contention was that the treaty was unfair and discriminatory, and, therefore, an insult to the Japanese people. The whole nation clamored that Japan should have either a naval status equal to that of the United States and Britain or be released from any restriction.
3:4 This was, of course, a sudden change in attitude. If the treaty was really unfair and discriminatory, why did Japan agree to the terms in 1921 and again in 1931? Or, to put it in reverse order, if the Japanese failed to see the unfairness of the ratio when they were signing the treaty, what caused them to see the unfairness of it now? The answer to these questions will reveal what had been considered by foreign observers as an open secret.
3:5 So far as the United States and Great Britain were concerned, their naval construction plans remained the same as in 1921, but in Japan, in 1933, the situation was vastly different. At the time of the Washington and London Conferences, Japan was still in the process of her secret preparations for war; but in 1933 her preparations were about to reach completion and she wanted to rid herself of any international entanglements which might hamper her. A brief review of the situation will make it clear.
3:6 When the 5-5-3 formula was agreed upon in 1921, the Japanese delegates at first protested for the sake of form, and then acquiesced as if out of good sportsmanship. In fact, they were the happiest and most successful group in the whole conference. Their successes were twofold. To win the honor of being one of the three greatest naval powers in the world was a great step forward, which would cater to the overweening pride of the Japanese race. And to set up a ratio which would keep her two rival powers from increasing their naval strength beyond the given limit was an unexpected victory for Japan, which fell into her lap like a windfall. She would never be able to build a navy second to none, even if she had to exhaust her treasury in a building race with the United States and Great Britain. But she could manage to maintain a secret reservation under which she could build all she desired, without open violation of the treaty. With this mental reservation, the poker-faced diplomats went home from Washington in high spirits.
3:7 The Japanese kept their factories, arsenals, and navy yards going at full blast, more or less covertly, in a feverish attempt to outbuild their Occidental rivals. The Western world, naively confident that the naval agreement would prevent Japan from excessive buildings, paid no attention. Later on, some keen observers in the West now and then demanded an international inquiry into Japan's covert preparation for war, but each time the Tokyo militarists came out boldly with indignant statements that such an inquiry would be regarded as an insult to the proud Samurai race, and the world remained silent.
3:8 Nevertheless, there were certain groups of people in America who were fully aware of what was going on behind Nippon's mask. The Japanese strategists knew that these groups must be sidetracked and their reports discredited. This was to be done by the combined efforts of diplomats and propagandists. They handled the situation skillfully. America heard or read everywhere such slogans as "Japan wants peace," "War between Japan and the United States is absurd." "There are jingoists and alarmists in Japan and the United States, but Japan hates these warmongers," etc. The world was fed on these statements so constantly that if anyone ventured to reveal Japan's well-concealed war scheme, he was severely censured as a trouble maker. The peace-loving citizens of America would rather suspect and criticize the policies and motives of their own government, true to democratic principles, than to suspect and criticize those of a foreign government. "If Japan demands naval parity," they would say, "it is because of the unfairness of the ratio idea imposed upon her by ourselves and Great Britain, and we should not suspect her."
3:9 Thus Americans unintentionally cultivated the American public mind for foreign propaganda statements like that of Admiral Kichisaburo Nomura, which is typical of many. In his article on "Japan's Demand for Naval Equality," published in the Foreign Affairs magazine, January, 1935, he said, in substance, that the ratio limit in capital ships was decidedly a blow to the self-respect of the Japanese people, who look upon it as a stigma of inferiority. Japan, in her Far Eastern position, cannot accept it, because it deprives her of armaments necessary for the execution of her policy of maintaining peace in the Orient. He said, further, that therefore this ratio should be abolished, thus giving Japan a position of equality with other powers. Then she would be content with the minimum of armaments adequate to guarantee her national security. If the powers should insist on keeping Japan in an inferior position, the Japanese people would resent it as strongly as the continued enjoyment of extraterritoriality by foreigners was resented in the early years of Meiji.
3:10 In this article, the admiral stated that Japan objected to the ratio because it gave her an inferiority complex and also because it jeopardized her national security. He indicated not the slightest inkling of further expansion of Japan, of the projected conquest of China, or of the campaign against foreigners, all of which were in Japan's military program. Anyone who reads that article today can see readily that the admiral purposely treated this part of the program as a military secret, and in 1935 everyone took his statement at its face value.
3:11 While Japanese admirals and diplomats were thus creating world opinion in their favor, they kept on building their navy until the time of the proposed London Naval Conference, when they had 154 under-age warships totaling 998,208 tons. This exceeded in number America's ninety-one ships, totaling 743,300 tons. At the time Britain had fifty new ships under construction, totaling 165,350 tons, America was constructing eighty-four ships, totaling 280,150 tons, and Japan only forty, totaling 115,807 tons. This comparison was based only on the figures that were made public. There was no way for other powers to ascertain how many more ships, in addition to the forty, Japan was constructing under cover. And even if her figures were correct, Japan had only 2,078 tons more to build to attain the treaty limit by the end of 1936, while Britain would have had to build 90,697 tons and America 71,135 tons to reach their treaty limits. When Japan went into conference she had, in effect, "the world's best navy," according to United States naval experts. No longer satisfied even with this favorable comparison, Japan was determined to make her navy "second to none."
3:12 During the celebration in 1935 of the anniversary of Admiral Togo's defeat of the Russian fleet at Port Arthur in 1904, the Japanese Navy Department published a pamphlet saying:
3:13 Such propaganda statements as quoted above, coupled with persistent demands for a revision of the naval ratio, finally led to the Five Power parley called to meet in London on December 9, 1935, although the term of the existing ratio was not to expire until the end of 1936.
3:14 On December 12, the four powers, Britain, France, Italy, and the United States, flatly rejected demands made by the Japanese delegation for a navy "second to none." This quartet of nations, together with Japan, constituted the conference. Japan's bid for a single standard which should be applied to all nations indiscriminately, regardless of defense requirements, was rebuffed by all the Western powers, whose common stand was supported by all the British dominions.
3:15 The British took the lead in objecting to the Japanese proposal. Norman H. Davis, chief of the American delegation, stressed in his speech the following points:
2. Absolute parity did not take into consideration the difference in naval needs of the powers concerned, that is, Britain's far-flung empire and the extensive coast lines of the United States in contrast with Japan's comparatively smaller areas.
3. The adoption of this new plan would upset the equilibrium established by the Washington treaty and upheld by the London Conference, and the United States could find no reason in the international situation for such a change.
On the following day, December 13, all four delegations said no, and the Japanese walked out, just as another Japanese group had walked out in Geneva three years before.
3:16 The Japanese newspaper Asahi said in an editorial on December 14, 1935:
3:17 All this propaganda was purely for American consumption. The vernacular papers had different versions for their home markets.
3:18 Every statement they issue for the outside world has a special point upon which they hammer. The average reader does not see it. He reads what the newspaper says, and feels that the United States is unfair. As he begins to feel it, "We are not working in earnest for peace but are trying to get too much power, and that is how we shall get into trouble with Japan." This is just the impression the Japanese propagandists seek to create in America, and thus has Japan been leading and misleading American public opinion. The best guide for the average reader of newspaper statements coming from Japan is to compare them with Japanese actions. The very fact that their words and deeds do not agree is evidence that their statements are inconsistent. The remarkable fact is that a gullible and credulous world does not stop to check them but swallows them whole. One does not have to travel far into history to discover this falsification. Take any of the Japanese statements made four or five years ago on an international issue and compare them with what is happening in Asia today. No harmony or consistency will be found.
3:19 As an answer to the question, "Why doesn't America let Japan have what she wants?" the following excerpts from an article by Fletcher Pratt, published in The American Mercury, January, 1937, briefly explain the great issues that are involved:
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3:24 Their military preparations completed, the Japanese threw off the mask to let the world know that they were no longer the polite, docile, bowing people they were in the time of Commodore Perry's visits, but are now a people whom the whole world must respect and fear. However, this did not mean that they would reveal their secret military program in advance. That would never do. It would be suicidal. They would rather complete all their plans behind the curtain, so that when they were ready for action they could take the world by surprise. So it is by action, not by word, that Japan would unveil her true self. Until then she would keep the outside world ignorant of her intentions.
3:25 In spite of all her camouflaging, there were many people in America who knew what Japan was about to attempt. The late United States Senator Key Pittman was one of them. He had the courage to voice his conviction. In an address given in Las Vegas, Nevada, December 19, 1935, Senator Pittman said:
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3:27 This startling statement came like a bolt from the blue, not only to peaceful, complacent news readers in America, but also to the Japanese militarists themselves. The excited Tokyo officials promptly replied in sharp, cutting words. Tart-tongued foreign office spokesman, Eiji Amau, said:
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3:29 Hirosi Saito, the Japanese Ambassador to the United States, released an official statement declaring that the possibility of a United States-Japanese conflict is "absurd. I beg Americans," he said, "to believe me that it is the desire of Japan to maintain only the most friendly relations with the United States. We are fully conscious that war between Japan and the United States would be the greatest of folly. We are each other's best customers. The naval parity presented a problem for all naval powers, not Japan and America alone."
3:30 Among wishful thinkers in America, the Japanese replies had more influence than had the bombshell speech of the American senator. One of the Washington newspapers editorially commented:
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3:32 Later events proved, however, that Ambassador Saito was farther removed from the truth than was the senator whom he attempted to refute. He was either ignorant of the facts and simply expressed his belief that his government would never attack America, which is highly improbable for an outstanding diplomat of his caliber, or he shut his eyes to the truth and followed the beaten tracks of practice laid down by all his predecessors in attempting to deceive the "ignorant," gullible West. At any rate, the "incidents" that followed cannot be called "an assured system of non-aggression and non-attack." Compared with the trifling incidents Japan used as an excuse for starting the Sino-Japanese war, as well as her previous wars, the sinking and bombing of the U. S. S. Panay was a sufficient casus belli for a declaration of war upon Japan by the United States. Was not the sinking of the steamship Lusitania one of the causes of America's declaration of war on Germany in 1917? That peace is still maintained between the two countries is owing, not to lack of warlike intention on the part of Japan nor to want of war-making causes on the part of the United States, but entirely to the spirit of patience and tolerance maintained by the United States through trying circumstances. The most encouraging sign emerging from these dark days is the awakening of the American people, who will no longer sit back and say, "The Japanese declare there will be no war and therefore we need not be alarmed." If the American people had taken Senator Pittman's warning more seriously in 1935, and had prepared to protect American citizens and American interests even at the risk of war, America might have saved herself the Panay experience in 1937, and the necessity of evacuating many of her citizens from the Orient in 1940.
3:33 On January 16, 1936, Premier Keisuke Okada stated: "I do not believe that a naval building race is coming. But the people of Japan must be prepared to meet whatever the future holds." Vice Admiral Takahashi, commander of the battle fleet, declared: "If the Japanese navy is called on to fight the combined powers of America and Great Britain, I am confident we will win, even if the ratio is ten to one."
3:34 These statements were made as government leaders and naval authorities launched an intensive publicity campaign to allay public fear of an increasing financial burden in the event of a navy race, especially with the United States.
3:35 Such a menacing attitude was bound to produce repercussions. By way of reply, Senator Pittman declared:
3:36 The Japanese, who did everything to knife the naval limitation treaties a year before the term of the treaty expired, and openly started the building race, made an overture to the United States asking for naval building limitation. Early in 1938 Japanese Foreign Minister Koki Hirota issued a statement expressing the hope that a halt would be reached in the world naval construction race "through appeals to the sense of fairness and justice among the major powers." The United States government indicated that such Japanese overtures would now be ignored.
3:37 This clever Japanese propaganda was meant to be an appeal to the American people in general, and to pacifist elements in particular, over the head of the United States government. Having failed at the London Conference to put herself on a parity with the United States on paper, Japan came to realize that she could not successfully compete with the United States in the building race. Hence the propaganda tactics and the appeal to the American people to use their "sense of fairness and justice" by keeping their government from augmenting their naval strength. Tactics of this kind had paid high dividends in the past. So long as a method pays, it will continue to be used. Americans, like others, are susceptible to blandishments, and in the practice of their own political faith are not prone to criticize foreign governments. But that same political creed permits them the utmost freedom to criticize their own government and all its acts. In their care, then, not to give offense it has become almost a social fashion, if not a habit, in America to look upon Japan as a friendly nation. The astute Nipponese diplomats know this and use it to the full.
Ⅳ. THE BEGINNING OF THE SINO-JAPANESE WAR
4:1 Whether it is coincidence, Oriental fatalism, or the guiding hand of the Japanese gods whose direct descendants they claim to be, it is interesting to note that each time the Japanese were ready to start another foray of brigandage, something happened elsewhere in the world, as if "made to order" for their convenience.
4:2 After Japan succeeded in getting rid of the naval ratio problem, the way was cleared for the long heralded war which was to start in the "most critical" year of 1936. Japan was expected by all to throw off her sheep's skin and reveal herself in her true colors. All observers, both Occidental and Oriental, believed the next victim of attack would be Russia, as was, indeed, planned in the original program.
4:3 As a matter of fact, the Japanese had started massing troops along the Russian border, but there they discovered two major obstacles. First, the Russians had completed their military preparations all along the Siberian frontiers. Unlike 1904, the Soviets were wideawake to the Japanese menace and rushed their defense plans, so that the Japanese army, having failed to effect a surprise, found very little chance for a successful drive to Lake Baikal. Second, the prevailing sentiment in America was not keen on backing up Japan in her anti-Comintern war. The situation in 1904 being far different, Soviet propaganda had been able to create wide-spread anti-Japanese feeling in the United States, and without moral and material support from the United States, Japan could not be sure of quick success.
4:4 In the opinion of the keen-sighted Japanese, a war with Great Britain would be entirely unnecessary, for, as they had said repeatedly, the days of British dominion in the Far East were numbered. To cross swords with the United States would be welcome to their army and navy, because they wanted to prove their "invincibility." But this was too risky as yet. To carry out their original plan to attack Russia unexpectedly was still their best course.
4:5 Japanese-Manchurian armies were about to cut across Outer Mongolia to sever the Trans-Siberian Railway at Lake Baikal. By slashing that vital artery of transportation, Japan thought she could easily cut off Eastern Asia and Vladivostok, which then would fall into her hands like a ripe fruit. Firing actually began near Lake Bor, which is claimed by both the Japanese and the Mongols.
4:6 On July 1, 1935, the Soviet Ambassador in Tokyo delivered a note of protest, which said, in part, that "these violations of Soviet frontiers by Japanese-Manchukuoan authorities may bring very serious consequences in the relations between the U. S. S. R. and Japan and to the cause of peace in the Far East."
4:7 The Russians, fully aware of the danger, rushed completion of a second Trans-Siberian Railway, north of Lake Baikal. Russian arms, machine guns, and bombing planes were poured into Urga, the capital of Outer Mongolia, and were spectacularly arrayed and displayed as though ready for operation. It was soon reported that the Mongol-Soviet forces outnumbered the Japanese-Manchurian troops at least two to one.
4:8 On July 7, 1935, in a speech to a huge crowd in Moscow, Vlas Chubar, Soviet Vice Minister, charged that the Japanese militarists were provoking "collision in the Far East." The attitude of the Japanese was "threatening," but, he added, "no menace will alter our policy for peace or our readiness to defend the Soviet Union with all means at our disposal."
4:9 At this time the Russian newspapers declared, without mincing words, that "Japan was deliberately provoking incidents to make an excuse for adding new territories to its recent gouging in Manchuria and North China."
4:10 It is characteristic of the Japanese military strategists that when their chance of winning a war is fifty-fifty, they back down to wait until they have one hundred per cent advantage. This can be proved by the fact that all the wars they have won were waged when their enemies were unprepared and unawares.
4:11 The Japanese War Minister Kawashima made an extended trip in Manchukuo to investigate the real situation, and, upon his return, he reported to the National Policy Council that Japan needed a large increase in her forces in Manchukuo "to hold the Soviet in check." He stated, further, that there were 200,000 Soviet troops along the frontier "in well-chosen and well-fortified positions, which no Japanese forces are able to resist."
4:12 Manchukuo was willing to continue fighting at thirty degrees below zero, but the Tokyo government, using the frigid weather as a face-saving excuse for a temporary suspension of operations, halted the Siberian invasion. The real cause was the war minister's statement, given out to the Tokyo press, which said: "The Red Army of the Soviet Union is 1,300,000, and the Soviet Far Eastern army is at least 250,000. Both are about equal to the entire Japanese standing army."
4:13 When a bully faces a chance of being beaten, he is astonishingly quick in piping down. The Tokyo government suddenly made a wheedling offer to Moscow. They withdrew their previous demands for a majority of delegates in a joint commission to settle border incidents. Thus they made it possible for a peaceful settlement of the incidents which they had intended to use as a cause of conflict. Premier Keisuke Okada was too timid to plunge the nation into a war with Russia,
4:14 But the ambitious young militarists could not keep patient any longer. The result was what is known as the Young Army Revolution. On February 26, 1936, long before dawn, one thousand soldiers quietly marched into Tokyo, captured the heart of the city and took charge of it. The newspapers were forbidden to reveal the movement, and telephones and the telegraph had ceased to function. The troops took possession of Premier Okada's residence, and some other bands went to the Peers' Club and the residences of other high liberal leaders. They demanded that Okada "come out and die for the country." A man walked out of the house and was shot to death. It was announced that Okada was dead. Goto, one of the ministers in Okada's Cabinet, was appointed Premier. Then it was reported that it was not Okada who had been killed, but his brother-in-law, Matsuo, who had died in his place in order to save Okada's life. At that time, Korekiyo Takahashi, Minister of Finance, who had been opposed to increased army appropriations, Admiral Viscount Makoto Saito, known as liberal adviser to the Emperor, and General Jotaro Watanabe, chief of military education, were assassinated by other bands, while Kantaro Suzuki was seriously wounded.
4:15 Emperor Hirohito called a hasty conference and ordered his own Imperial Guard to keep the rebellious army down. Navy squadrons soon were poured into Tokyo, martial law was proclaimed, and all citizens around the rebel districts were cleared out.
4:16 The motive of this mutiny was reported to be opposition to the "anti-military" sentiment shown in the Cabinet and Diet. It seemed evident that the civil government was trying to slow down the march of conquest, in view of the unfavorable feeling steadily growing in America after the Manchu invasion. On the other hand, the young army officers, who had been fed on the great idea that they were invincible, wanted the government to turn them loose to challenge one of the strongest powers of the West. The dissatisfaction had been brewing for some time and finally it broke out in this rebellion.
4:17 The officers were tried by court-martial in secret session. The government took every precaution in declaring a war-time censorship and forbidding all newspapers to issue extras, so that no news of the trial could leak out. Then the government explained in a somewhat apologetic manner that the purpose of the revolt was "to get rid of the ministers who were trying to keep Japan shackled to the 5-5-3 naval ratio."
4:18 The verdict, "promulgated in order to avoid disturbing public opinion," read as follows:
4:19 It is perfectly clear to anyone who understands the mental processes of the Japanese that these young military leaders started the revolt in an effort to do away with the men in the government who did not think the time had come for Japan to start hostilities against either or both of her naval rivals, the United States and Great Britain. In the nation-wide excitement about the "critical year 1936" the militarists insisted on attacking the Western nations which stood in their way and prevented Japan from "leading to a high destiny." This no civil government could dare to venture, and, consequently, the clash between the military and civilian groups had been growing to a high tension. This accounts for many of the assassinations which took place in this period.
4:20 The list of political murders since 1931 includes two premiers, a senior general, a leading industrialist, and two of the foremost financiers. It was deemed patriotic to kill anyone, whether a high government official or a private citizen, for the sake of the nation. The public erected shrines and temples in honor of the assassins.
4:21 It was in 1934, in a "prayer meeting conspiracy," that the "sacred warriors'" club plotted the assassination of Charlie Chaplin, then in Japan, to bring about war with the United States. And in February, 1935, Katsusuke Nagasaki, member of the Bushinkai, a patriotic society stabbed a Tokyo publisher for sponsoring a movement to bring the American baseball player, Babe Ruth, to Japan.
4:22 Following the army revolution, it was difficult to find one suitable for the premiership. As always before choosing a new premier, the Emperor asked the advice of old Prince Kinmochi Saionji, last of the elder statesmen who served in the Cabinet of the great Emperor Meiji; he recommended forty-five-year-old Prince Fumimaro Konoe, President of the House of Peers, an independent, militaristic aristocrat. Though inexperienced in administration, he accepted the position and at once started to organize his Cabinet. By telephoning the prospective ministers, he succeeded in filling all the portfolios within a few hours. It was consequently dubbed "the telephone Cabinet."
4:23 The new premier had to make a decision, as it could no longer be delayed. To conquer China first was considered the course of least resistance, and the Japanese government decided to take that course.
4:24 The clash between Chinese and Japanese soldiers at Marco Polo bridge, near Peiping, on July 7, 1937, was used as the cause of this undeclared Sino-Japanese war. As the invading army and navy pushed ahead, they captured, one by one, all the important business centers and, excepting a route or two kept open by the Chinese, closed all the coast line to the rest of the world. Stories of the war too horrible for publication were all destroyed before they could reach beyond the blockade line, with the exception of only a few reports that were brought out through devious ways.
4:25 The net gain of territory, with all the wealth and investments therein, the Japanese added to their empire during the hostilities up to 1939 can be seen at a glance in the following list:
| Year | Area square mile | Population | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Japan proper | 148,756 | 72,222,700 | |
| 1895 | Formosa | 13,890 | 5,215,719 |
| 1895 | The Pescadors | 50 | 60,000 |
| 1905 | Japanese Saghalin | 13,930 | 331,949 |
| 1910 | Korea | 85,228 | 22,355,485 |
| 1915 | Kwantung (Liaotung) | 1,438 | 1,656,726 |
| 1919 | Japanese Mandates | 829 | 331,949 |
| 1931 | Manchukuo | 503,013 | 35,338,000 |
| 1939 | China | 900,000 | 150,000,000 |
| 1939 | The Spratly Islands | ||
| 1,667,1334 Sq.m. | 287,242,398 |
4:26 Lives Destroyed
It is estimated that between 2,000,000 and 2,500,000 Chinese have been killed or wounded in battle or in the air bombing of cities. More than 40,000,000[2] Chinese fled to new homes in the interior.
The Japanese admit that 70,000 of their soldiers have been killed or wounded in China, but foreign observers put the number of killed and wounded at hundreds of thousands. The Chinese estimate of Japanese losses is 1,000,000.
4:27 Foreign Monetary Losses
The Chinese custom survey in 1938 estimated foreign losses in China resulting from the war at approximately $800,000,000, of which half was incurred by the British, $200,000,000 by American, and the remainder by German interests.
The above estimates were obtained in 1939.
Before we proceed further, we may pause a moment to survey the general aspect of this Far Eastern outburst, with all its bearings on the entire world situation.
4:28 When a fire rages through a forest, everyone living near by at once thinks of his home and does something to save it. Yet there are many people who have never seen a real forest fire and cannot fully comprehend its terrible destructiveness. Probably that is why comparatively few people take it seriously. Some would say, "The fire is burning on the other side of the mountain, and it will be a long time before it can reach here." Others would say, "Let those whose houses are on fire fight it. It is their business and not ours." Still some others would say, "It may destroy our next town or even the house of our neighbor, but so long as we keep ourselves completely detached, it will never bother us." In this way, all those whose homes are not yet caught in the flames would have nothing to do with the conflagration and those whose homes are already reduced to ashes would have nothing more about which to be concerned. The only persons really in earnest about stopping the catastrophe are those whose properties are actually going up in smoke, and to their sad disappointment, they find it too late to save the situation. This is a homely illustration, in which everyone can see how impossible it would be for the people living in a forest to take such an indifferent attitude toward a fire. Yet this is the position taken by nations today regarding the war which is destroying them one by one.
4:29 Let us take the most recent development of the fire which started in Korea in 1905. Manchuria and China, Ethiopia, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Albania, Norway, Denmark, Holland, Belgium, and France were invaded and destroyed one after another, and still there seems to be no end in sight. Only a short time ago, every nation thought it was not concerned. This attitude was soon changed into the question, "Who will be next?" And now more than half the European nations have been wiped from the map, and the few remaining nations are asking themselves, "When will our turn come?" It seems that nations are doomed by their own sins of selfishness. If the general tendency of every nation is to be one of purely selfish concern there will be no salvation for any.
4:30 The refusal by the white races to admit that the war forced upon the Chinese is also aimed at them does not alter the fact in the least. The conflict is on, and in its wake the results will bring out this fact in bold relief. This is the part of the Sino-Japanese conflict in which Americans are particularly interested.
Ⅴ. FOREIGN NEWSPAPERMEN MUST GO
5:1 To occupy China's commercial centers while foreigners continued to enjoy their treaty rights would be to the Japanese like keeping a cattle ranch infested with lions. Therefore the foreigners must go. This end, the Japanese expect to attain through various tortuous means, and, naturally, it will take time. But the newspapermen must go at once. The idea of a free press has always been abhorrent to the Japanese system of political and social life. Now they have to subjugate more than one-half of China's entire population - rebellious, unconquered, and unconquerable in spirit. This has to be achieved through a continuous program of massacre, burning, torture, and imprisonment, together with the use of all the ingenious devices of modern and medieval barbarism combined, which will turn the conquered parts of China into a veritable purgatory. This process of reducing the native population is effective in two ways, Japanese believe. It kills off the anti-Japanese spirit and makes room for the Japanese themselves. "They must die, the Koreans, Manchurians, and Chinese, so that we Japanese may live, and live more comfortably," they say. "Is not the theory of the 'survival of the fittest,' a modern philosophy of life preached and practiced among the 'civilized nations' of the West?" they argue.
5:2 With all these ideas in their heads, these modernized Japanese, hailed all over the world as the most "civilized" people in the East, have been carrying out this "extinction policy" in Korea, Chientao, Kirin, and other parts of Manchuria ever since the annexation of Korea. The dead are dumb, they cannot speak. But some of the victims of these horrible tortures are still living and their bodies bear the marks of Japan's "modernized" inhumanity. Some of these men are now in the United States. One of the thirty-three signers of the Korean Declaration of Independence on March 1, 1919, a minister in one of the Korean churches in Hawaii, must constantly apply medicine to the sores caused by the burning torture used by the Japanese police in their effort to extort a "confession." All this was done in secret. The outside world must know nothing. The Japanese will keep on practicing their methods in China on an even larger scale, for that is the only way they can hope to keep China down.
5:3 Therefore, the foreigners they must put out first are the American newspaper correspondents. The militarists nurse a particular hatred for these writers. Relentless publicity is their nemesis. That is why their government has spent a million dollars or more each year for propaganda in the United States for the last thirty years. Through the propaganda network in the United States, the Japanese have been able to cover up the ugly side of their nature and to focus the spotlight on their painted face. The Domei News Service, Japan's national news agency, organized with their trained and well qualified nationals, together with a number of Americans, is ready to take over the work at any time. Foreign services such as Reuter's of London, the Associated Press, the United Press, and others of America, will have to go to Domei representatives for information which they may send to their headquarters abroad.
5:4 Henry W. Kinney of Hawaii was invited by Yosuke Matsuoka, formerly Japan's chief delegate at Geneva, to serve in connection with the Japanese news agency. As they were about to chase out from the Orient all the newspapermen who were not absolutely for them, the Japanese were in need of Americans who were one hundred per cent pro-Japanese. Kinney was born in Hawaii, became a newspaperman, and later was appointed Superintendent of the Department of Public Instruction. He proved himself a true friend of Japan. In the invasion of Manchuria, they used him as liaison man between Japanese military officers and foreigners. His services proved highly satisfactory. He retired in 1935, when the Manchukuo administration was thoroughly consolidated. Now that they are pushing to the south, they need him again and have called him back.
5:5 If Japan succeeds, or rather if Japan is left unchecked in carrying out her present program, which is well under way, the outside world will be completely cut off from all information about the vast region occupied by the Japanese. The press will be unable to obtain news other than propaganda releases which the Japanese want them to print, true or false. The stories they hand out in Tokyo, Manchukuo, Peiping, etc., are so cunningly devised and disguised that both the news-seeking press and the news-reading public may swallow them without suspicion. The leaders in Tokyo, who are in touch with every part of the world, and every part of the United States in particular, feel the pulse of public sentiment from day to day as a physician feels the pulse of his patients, and send out news dispatches to influence the rank and file of the various peoples.
5:6 Japan started her program of military conquest in Korea thirty-five years ago on an experimental basis. She met with such success that ever since she has been repeating that program in nearly every detail, first in her Manchukuo invasion and then in her China campaign. She has handled the press in China just as she handled it in Korea.
5:7 News correspondents must leave Japanese-controlled areas, with the exception of a few who may be able to manage to please the conquerors. The foreigners living there must indicate pro-Japanese sentiment and show no sympathy for the "natives." Otherwise, they cannot remain. The Japanese do not merely tell them to get out. They use devious and roundabout methods. Military necessity is the best excuse. "We cannot be responsible for your safety. We warn you all to evacuate from the danger zone for your own sakes," they say. In the meantime, some "incident" results in destruction of property and endangers the persons of foreigners. This method produces the desired result. In cases of less than one hundred per cent success, the Japanese are ready to make any sort of wild accusation against those whose presence they do not desire, charging them with violating the army criminal code or attempting to assassinate a Japanese admiral or governor. At any rate, any foreigner who refuses to submit to the "new order" cannot long remain. Those who prefer to stay cannot do or say anything derogatory to the Japanese regime. Foreign tourists are unable to see or hear anything which the Japanese wish to keep covered. Nor do the tourists wish to incur the hostility of the Japanese, as they may wish to visit the Orient again.
5:8 "As soon as Japan's "new order" is definitely established, the entire region under her military rule will be kept closed to the outside world, as is Korea today. Newspapers in America will have to publish all the Japanese propaganda stories or nothing. A significant notice is printed at the foot of The New York Times front page, as follows:
"Dispatches from Europe and the Far East are subject to censorship at the source."
5:9 In the warning given to foreign correspondents in Peiping by Lieutenant Colonel Junzo Harada, Japanese military spokesman, in September, 1937, may be seen how cleverly the Japanese started the censorship campaign. Colonel Harada admonished news correspondents not to be misled by foreign news reports. He said, "It seems to me that the Chinese are trying to appeal to the world's sympathy, therefore these agencies are being operated not by foreigners but by Chinese employees." Then he said he believed the reports of the Canton bombings were "manufactured" in Shanghai, as if to say that Canton was never bombed. This aroused the indignation of the correspondents, who challenged him to explain. He could not say the Canton bombing reports were false, and calmly replied, "I am speaking merely as a patriotic Japanese. I feel too much sympathy has been shown the Chinese side by foreigners." It seems very hard for the militarists to take into consideration that world sympathy could have anything to do with their own behavior. They always insist on demanding that the other nations be their friends, whether they are right or wrong, since to them "might makes right." If the world fails to recognize this fact, they will punish the world sooner or later. That is their military psychology. Colonel Harada gave a gentle hint, and if the correspondents failed to heed it, they could take the consequences.
5:10 In spite of this gentle warning, some of the correspondents, true to the spirit of American headline hunters, are still dispatching news reports vividly and graphically describing the war scenes. Haldore Hanson, Associated Press correspondent, had been sending his reports to the United Press, which are printed in most of the leading newspapers throughout the nation. His dispatch from Paotingfu, dated October 11, 1937, was one of many that did not please the Japanese. He said, in part: "Six American women and one man, besides myself, are safe in this gutted city, amid desolation following one of the bloodiest chapters of the Sino-Japanese war." Referring to American missionaries, he said: "All of them have gone through thrilling, horrifying experiences, which they have been relating to me since I arrived here in September on bicycle." If he had taken Colonel Harada's admonition to heart, he would not have mentioned any of the horrifying scenes of the war, since they would stimulate public sentiment in America in favor of China. Instead, he would have told all about the perfect moral behavior, the heroism and demeanor of the Japanese army and navy at the battle front, as all the correspondents did in praise of the Japanese in the Sino-Japanese war of 1894, and again in the Russo-Japanese war of 1904. Perhaps they conducted their warfare with more circumspection in those wars than they have this time. Instead of trying to change their own behavior to win over world sympathy, they decided that the world must change its attitude toward them.
5:11 Haldore Hanson was arrested by Japanese soldiers, when he was on his way back to Peiping, and was taken to Paotingfu. There he was grilled by Japanese gendarmes for eight consecutive hours. A fever developed and he became ill from Japanese food. He was sent to the Presbyterian hospital, where he spent ten days in bed. He wrote:
5:12
5:13 Nearly three weeks after his arrest, his case was brought to the attention of the United States Embassy at Peiping and representations were made to the Japanese Embassy. Special attention was called to the fact that Hanson was not permitted to notify the United States Embassy and was detained at military police headquarters for four consecutive days until late at night without food or water and without any legal charge against him.
5:14 In this case, the Japanese knew the punishment was harsh and unjustified, but they did not worry about that. The main thing was to produce the desired effect. All the foreigners must know that the tables were turned, and that henceforth it is not the Japanese who are to live in a white men's world but that the white men are to live in a Japanese world. In order to create this impression, exemplary punishments, severe enough to create fear as a means of discipline, must be meted out. Thus Hanson was the victim of this "new order." with no means of redress.
5:15 If news reporters who write articles unfavorable to Japan are to be punished, cameramen who depict the same stories in pictures cannot be left unchecked. H. S. Wong, Chinese cameraman for Fox Movietone, a veteran of ten years' service with that firm, was arrested in Shanghai in February, 1937, by the Municipal Police, at the request of the Japanese authorities, on the charge of being engaged in anti-Japanese activities. The direct cause of his arrest was, however, his picture of a wounded baby on the South Station platform, following a Japanese bombing, which appeared in Life magazine. So Wong learned his lesson. If he and all others like him want to keep in good grace with the militarists, they must send to America nothing but pictures of cherry blossoms, silk kimonos, and Japanese dolls.
5:16 James Russel Young, correspondent of International News Service, for thirteen years one of the outstanding foreign newspapermen in Japan, was arrested at the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo on January 21, 1940. The police took all his files and correspondence and searched his apartment twice, without informing him of the charge.
5:17 Young went to China as a war correspondent and cabled six articles from Hong Kong describing the horrors of Japan's undeclared war on China. He also delivered a number of speeches, which did not please the Japanese. His special friendship with Ambassador Joseph C. Grew also was counted against him. When he returned to Tokyo, he was arrested for "spreading fabrications and rumors concerning military affairs in time of war and emergency."
5:18 It was disclosed on February 2 that he was thrown into a cell in Sugamo prison. During his detention in dungeon for fifty days, he was not allowed to see even his wife or officials of the United States Embassy. When the Embassy was informed of his arrest, William T. Turner, the second secretary, immediately got in touch with the Japanese authorities, but was told that no one would be allowed to see Young. Plenty of warm clothes, including the Ambassador's old fur coat, were sent to the prison. The police said that he wouldn't need pajamas, “as the cell is so cold, he will keep his cloth on at night."
5:19 On March 15, his trial was concluded; one week later he was sentenced to six months’ imprisonment and payment of the cost of his trial. The court "graciously" suspended his prison term, put him on probation for three years, and then sent him back to his cell to remain there until the end of March.
5:20 There were numerous dispatches in American newspapers showing how Japanese propagandists try to cover acts of injustice to an American with a show of friendliness. In the case of Mr. Young, the Japanese authorities tried to create an impression that the court showed him a great favor, because he was an American, by "speeding the preliminary inquiry." and by "disposing of the trial with greater speed," as if to say he would have been in jail for years instead of more than seven weeks if it had not been for his American citizenship. Another great favor shown him was that "he was tried by a civil court," as if to say that if it had not been that he was an American, he would have been court-martialed and shot. "He would be allowed to leave the country," as if to say that if he had not been an American, he would have been kept in Japan all his life. The truth is that he was expelled. When average news readers in America read such reports as these, they generally overlook the anti-American spirit underlying them and see only the "Friendly" attitude shown toward Americans. Many trusting and unsuspecting Americans still believe that the Japanese are friendly to America and deserving of American confidence. This is how Japan has been successful in her conquest of American public opinion, while destroying all American interests and prestige in the Far East.
5:21 The Japan Advertiser has been known as one of the most outstanding American-owned dailies outside the United States. The Konoe Cabinet quietly pronounced the death sentence on that paper on October 10, 1940. It was put under Japanese control by a merger with The Japan Times and Japan Mail, which were already nothing but Japanese mouthpieces. B. W. Fleisher, formerly of Philadelphia, who became its owner in 1910, and is now seventy years old and in poor health, left Japan, not to return. At the same time, Dong Ah Ilbo, of Seoul, formerly the largest and now the only remaining daily newspaper owned and run by Koreans, met with the same fate.
5:22 Mr. Fleisher, like many others, spent the prime of his life in Japan promoting American friendship in the belief that by so doing he was advancing the cause of peace in the Pacific. Now he has come to realize, like many others, that he was only helping in building Greater Japan. As one of the founders of the American Japan Society, he devoted himself to that organization for twenty years. In fact, he was so friendly with the Japanese that his newspaper was for years known as pro-Japanese in contrast with The Japan Chronicle, another outstanding English daily[3] in Japan. Now that Japan needs his services no longer, he has been elbowed out.
5:23 In this connection, I must say a few words about R. O. Matheson, who served as editor-in-chief of The Japan Advertiser for many years. For ten years before, up to the time of his acceptance of the Tokyo offer soon after the World War, he was editor-in-chief of The Honolulu Advertiser. He was a man of fine character and enjoyed the full confidence of the cosmopolitan community in Hawaii. In the editorials and news columns of his paper, he showed special interest in the Korean Christian Institute and the Korean Christian Church which I started in Honolulu. He always showed his sympathy for the small Korean people minority in the territory, and often clashed with the Japanese, who constituted almost a majority of the population. Japanese are empire builders wherever they go, and they were building a small Japan in that American possession.
5:24 Leading Americans, especially the financiers, were helping the Japanese by insisting on the much heralded "melting pot" idea. The Koreans saw the melting pot turning out Japanese types rather than American and refused to be dumped into it. Naturally, they were singled out and gradually fell into the limbo of forgotten men.
5:25 Mr. Matheson, realizing that some day this neglected Korean element would be of some service to the United States, presented their side of the picture to the public whenever he could. He was soon criticized by the Japanese as a champion of the Korean cause. No doubt, the Japanese decided that it would be smart to invite him to Tokyo. The invitation came from The Japan Advertiser, and he accepted it. When the Passive Revolution broke out in Korea in 1919, Matheson published in his columns, and also dispatched to the United States, a series of articles giving most graphic and thrilling accounts of the heroic struggle staged by the unarmed and peaceful men and women against the barbarous bayonet and rifle charges of the Japanese soldiers, gendarmes, and police. Once I sent him a cable message, to which I received no reply; but some time later I received a message through a confidential channel requesting me not to send any word to him directly. Several years later, he passed away in Japan, and the news of his death came as a great blow to me.
5:26 I close this chapter with the latest report of one of the saddest tragedies ever recorded in the annals of modern journalism. It is the story of Melville J. Cox, Reuter's correspondent in Tokyo, who was arrested on July 27, 1940, and died two days later as a climax of a fifty-five hour torture. Complete information about the surrounding suspicious circumstances was made public in London on October 3. As usual, there is wide divergence between the Japanese version and the foreign version of the story. According to the Japanese, Cox committed suicide by jumping out of a fifth-floor window of the police court when he discovered that the police were in possession of "proof of his guilt." The foreigners were of the belief that he was so broken by torture that the police thought it best to throw him from the window in order to have an excuse for the wounds and bruises on his body. The evidence furnished by his wife supported the latter view.
5:27 When he was seized by the police in Tokyo on July 27, his wife was told that they wanted to ask him "some questions" and that there was no charge against him. On the morning of July 29, she took breakfast to him at the prison at the usual hour, and his lunch at 1:30. She asked for an answer to a note she had sent in with his breakfast and was told to wait at the gate. It was brought out half an hour later, but she saw that it was written in a very shaky hand-so much so that she had difficulty in recognizing it as her husband's writing. When she returned to her hotel, she found a telephone message saying that her husband was injured and that she was to come to the police court. She hurried there. stopping only at the British Embassy to let them know what had happened. "They took me to the fifth floor," said Mrs. Cox, according to published reports, "and I saw the ghastly spectacle of my poor husband lying on a hard bench, his legs stretched out, and his whole body swollen with wounds. His legs and his arms were hanging limp and also his spine was injured. His face and hands were purple. His right eye was closed, his skull was fractured and chin also. I counted more than thirty-five injection marks. Some of the police were smiling."
5:28 According to the dispatch, Cox kept shouting, "Hell, hell-let me go-take me away-what do you want of me? Blast all of you-let me alone, oh, let me go." Mrs. Cox continued, "Jimmy was suffering martyrdom. After a while, as I wanted to make him comfortable, I asked for a pillow, but there was only a hard Japanese cushion." She demanded that the police immediately bring the two suitcases containing the warm clothing which she had sent to her husband. When, finally, they brought the suitcases, she found that nothing she had sent to make him comfortable had reached him. Cox died in his wife's arms. It is her firm belief that he received his fatal injuries between ten and eleven 0'clock that morning and not at 12:30, as the police said, and that she was called in only when it was clear that he was dying. "It is impossible that between the time of my leaving and the telephone call that they could have taken him up, and washed, and bandaged him," she said. By threatening to throw herself from the window, Mrs. Cox forced the Japanese to take her to the basement cell where her husband had been kept. It was a small cubicle, dark, foul, damp, and not high enough to stand up in. It had a door only three feet high and nothing but a wooden bench to sit on.
5:29 After his death, the police said they had "proof of his guilt," but still failed to make known the charge.
5:30 Such a story as this has been of frequent occurrence among the Koreans. Many news reporters, as well as men in other walks of life, mysteriously disappeared as victims of torture or other foul play. Yet they had neither recourse nor a chance to make their sorrow and grievance known to their fellow men.
5:31 Is it not strange that the British people, who had always been so blindly pro-Japanese, should suffer such treatment at the hands of their "friends"? There are those who still insist that Americans should remain friendly with Japan, even at the expense of national defense, under the belief that the peace of the Pacific can be saved only through American friendship with that aggressor nation.
Ⅵ. FOREIGN MISSIONARIES
6:1 Next to the newspapermen, the foreign missionary is the most undesirable to Japan. His business there is soul-saving. If he is true to his mission, he works for the spiritual welfare of the Chinese people. While all other foreigners pack up and leave the country as soon as they find that they can get neither the profit nor the pleasure they seek, the missionary remains with what money comes from his country and carries on his work even at the risk of his life.
There are several reasons why his stay in Japan is objectionable:
6:2 (1) The natives look up to him as superior, not only to themselves, but also to the Japanese. This does not please the Japanese, who try to prove to the world that they are superior to all other races, including the white man. So long as the missionary is there, "the natives" will go to him for spiritual and moral guidance. The Chinese will never completely submit to the Japanese. The Japanese insist that there must be but one master, and that that one master be Japanese. Therefore, the Japanese decided thirty years ago in Korea that the missionaries must do one of the two things-" bow and no go, or go and no bow." They knew well enough that if they publicly announced it as their policy, they would be criticized as anti- Christian. This would be derogatory to the honor of the Empire as one of the most civilized nations of the world. Why should they risk that? Underhanded methods, of which they are past masters, would bring the same results without incurring the criticism. Consequently, the missionaries have had to undergo all kinds of humiliation, discrimination, and even personal injuries, under every possible pretext.
6:3 (2) The missionaries live in the interior and travel everywhere. They witness everything the Japanese do. Naturally they are sympathetic with the Chinese. They condemn the crimes and atrocities perpetrated by the military invaders in their efforts to bring the Chinese to submission. They are the ones that stir up the feelings of outside nations by sending to their respective homelands eyewitness descriptions and snapshot evidence of the horrors of Japan's barbarism. Japanese militarists, like all other militarists, know no other way to break the resistance of their victims than by torture, burning, and wholesale massacre. All this no foreigner can be allowed to observe; therefore, the missionaries must go.
6:4 (3) The democratic spirit of the West is poisonous to the very life of Mikadoism. The missionary preaches the idea that right and not might will ultimately prevail, that wrong and injustice will be punished by its own wrongdoing, and that in democratic countries men will give their lives for the cause of liberty. This can never be tolerated by the Samurai regime.
6:5 (4) The religion the missionary preaches is diametrically opposed to the Nipponese national religions of Buddhism and Shintoism. All mankind should bow before the Mikado's shrines, for the Japanese rulers are direct descendants of divinity. Christians are unwilling to join in the shrine worship. The Tokyo government had much trouble in forcing missionaries and their followers in Japan and Korea to pay due respect to the portrait of the Emperor of Japan. Although some of them do it, it is done with reluctance. As the Japanese see it, the cause of much trouble lies in the presence of the Christian missionaries, therefore they must go.
6:6 When they were enforcing this policy in Korea thirty years ago, the Japanese knew that they had to go slowly. But now in China, what do they have to fear? Are they not out to prove to the world their military might? Therefore, it is to be expected that the missionaries in China now will suffer more than those in Korea suffered. The relation of a few of many incidents will tell the story.
6:7 The civilized peoples of the world make special efforts to spare, if not protect and preserve, institutions of learning and spiritual worship, even in time of war. This has been recognized as an established law among nations, and its observance is considered a part of human instinct. However, Nipponese raiders defy this established usage and make these institutions the target of their bombs. Whenever their armies entered a city, the soldiers were turned loose for a Roman holiday. Freedom to loot and rape at will is the order of the day. Everyone helps himself to anything and everything.
6:8 In the meantime, certain groups are detailed to ransack all institutions, such as museums, libraries, and art galleries, under special instructions to remove from them all relics of ancient civilization and objects of art and science, which are to be sent to Japan, thus making Tokyo the center of Oriental culture and civilization. This system of organized international looting was first inaugurated by the Japanese army which occupied the city of Seoul, Korea, in 1905. They ransacked Kiu Jang Kak, one of the two most famous and oldest libraries in the Far East, and took most of the rare books and articles of antiquity to Japan.
6:9 Later they dispatched a large band of troops, armed with drawn bayonets and loaded firearms, to Poongduk, near Songdo, where the troops took apart one of the two biggest and oldest pagodas in Korea and shipped the whole thing to Japan. In this connection, it may be interesting to the reader to know that even in America the same spirit prevails among the Japanese. They seek every opportunity to enrich their Empire by fair means or foul. They make persistent efforts to destroy every trace of historical fact, and have despoiled Korea of her centuries-old culture and civilization. They make systematic searches and either remove or destroy any and every book which gives a correct account of the past. And to crown their efforts the Japanese have been compiling a new Korean history. The Koreans know what kind of history it is going to be. In spite of the fact that Japan as a nation was more than two thousand years behind Korea, the Japanese new Korean history will try to prove that the first ruler of Korea was a brother of the Emperor Jimmu and that Koreans were time and again subjected to Japanese rule.
6:10 The Japanese would have the whole world believe that they are descendants of the sun goddess or moon goddess, but they cannot change the historical truth about Korea.
6:11 Before we return to our topic, I must mention another important point in this connection. It should be borne in mind that when Japan is some day brought to her knees by the joint forces of Korea and China, no peace terms should be signed nor armistice declared until she has returned every book and every article stolen from Korea and China.
6:12 Institutions owned by Americans were especially marked for destruction. Lingnan University, at Canton, owned by Americans, suffered heavy damages and a Chinese woman was killed when the Japanese raiders dropped several bombs on the university campus. Boone College in Hankow, owned by the American Church Mission, was also hit by three bombs, which caused extensive damage to its buildings. At the same time, seven other bombs were dropped on American property outside the college, killing six refugees. One of the bombs landing on the college grounds caused the instant death of seven refugees in one of the buildings. No one can claim this was unintentional or a mistake.
6:13 According to Bishop W. P. Roberts of the American Church Mission, Japanese were occupying, at the beginning of June, 1938, mission churches, schools, and residences in Soochow, Changshu, Yangchow, and elsewhere, and nine of the missions within his diocese had been destroyed up to that date. Furthermore, he stated publicly that Japanese in Yangchow deliberately burned the Mission library there, and, despite strong protests, converted the Baptist hospital into a military hospital.
6:14 The Baptist Mission in Chapei, valued originally at $250,OOO, was almost totally ruined by constant bombing and shelling, and their occupancy of buildings that were still habitable was abhorrent to all religious sense of sanctity. In some they stabled their horses, and others they used as barracks and munitions storehouses. Other cities had similar experiences.
6:15 In Wuchang, Japanese soldiers scaled hospital walls and "bothered" Chinese refugee girls. When such conduct was reported to their headquarters, their officers simply smiled and advised the complainants to go home and keep quiet about it.
6:16 When they were occupying these and other mission properties in the invaded territories, on the plea of military necessity, they tried to give the impression that they would remain only a short time. Whenever questioned, they replied that as soon as military necessity was ended, the properties would be restored to the original owners. But the situation will not change until a superior power brings it about. American consuls and the State Department have made strong representations, and so have the British diplomats, but the Japanese militarists, securely in the saddle, blandly reply: "The areas occupied by the Japanese will not be opened to foreigners until conditions permit."
6:17 Father Downs, of Erie, Pa., a missionary under the Maryknoll Mission Society, was engaged in his work at his home in Hong Kong in July, 1938. During the two-hour bombing raid of Swatow forty-nine bombs were rained on the civilian population of that city. He tried not to show concern over the raids and continued on his routine duties. Soon he heard shrapnel striking his walls, and suddenly his house collapsed. He miraculously escaped, with minor injuries, and made his way to the water front, where he dropped, unconscious. Later he was picked up by a tender and taken aboard the naval vessel Sacramento.
6:18 According to two Americans, Orpha Gould and Rosalind Rinker, the occupation of Paotingfu was the bloodiest of all the reigns of terror inaugurated by the Japanese invasion of China. They walked sixty miles from Laiyuan through a hailstorm and took six days to arrive in Paotingfu the night before the beginning of the battle. While on the journey, Japanese planes machine-gunned them three times, but they ran for cover and sometimes hid in cotton or bean fields, thus miraculously escaping with their lives. They were eyewitnesses of some of the most horrible war scenes. Hundreds of peaceful civilians, men, women, and children, were shot down promiscuously, and the whole city was sacked and looted by Japanese soldiers, with their officers looking on.
6:19 On June 18, 1938, the American Southern Baptist Mission at Pingtu, Shantung Province, was bombed, the school buildings being damaged extensively and numerous Chinese civilians being killed. Six American flags were flying at the time of the bombing.
6:20 The Lutheran Mission Hospital at Kioshan, outside the city of Hankow, was bombed in spite of being marked by twelve large American flags; the flags could be seen for ten miles.
6:21 Japanese bombs struck the Southern Baptist Mission at Changchow three times, seriously injuring four Chinese patients in the Mission hospital, in spite of the fact that a big sign marked "U.S.A." and an American flag forty feet long were painted on the hospital roof. In addition, a large American flag was flying from a pole at the compound.
6:22 On January 19, 1938, the Japanese dropped several bombs on the New Zealand Presbyterian hospital compound at Hongchung,[4] one of which rolled into a deep open well and exploded at the bottom, shaking the buildings and residents, but doing no serious damage.
6:23 The Moore Memorial Church of the Southern Methodist Mission in Shanghai was hit by a grenade thrown into the yard on February 3, 1938. The serious nature of this incident lies in the fact that this church was located in the International Settlement, which has been regarded as foreign territory.
6:24 All these incidents might be excusable on the ground that it was almost impossible for Japanese raiders to avoid hitting foreign missions. In numerous cases, however, no such argument or plea constitutes a justification. It is plainly indicated that Japanese bombers were only obeying orders and seemed to find huge amusement in doing so. In May, 1938, Japanese war planes five times bombed the Italian Catholic mission at Kaifeng, until, finally, a bomb hit the chapel and demolished it completely. There was no army station in the vicinity, and the weather was clear enough for anyone to see from a distance of many miles the huge Italian flag fifty feet square flying over the chapel and three other Italian flags conspicuously displayed outside the Mission. British and Canadian missions in various sections, each marked with the Union Jack, were raided time and again without warning.
6:25 The automobile in which J. P. Anderson, Seventh Day Adventist missionary, was traveling toward Waichow, was machine-gunned in broad daylight. There can be no mistake as to the attacker's intention.
6:26 The most barbarous of the known atrocities perpetrated by Nipponese invaders against foreign missionaries during this time was the massacre of nine Catholic missionaries. The presiding bishop of the Catholic mission inside the city was visited by a Japanese officer, who assured him that the notice he was posting on the mission gate that troops were not to molest the inmates would protect him and the mission. In the light of the ensuing events, it was evident that the notice which was supposed to be a sign of safety was in reality a signal for foul play. The following evening, ten uniformed soldiers rushed into the mission house while the missionaries were at dinner, herded them out, tied their hands, blindfolded them, and drove them away in an army truck to a Japanese military crematory. What happened to them no one knows.
6:27 From Chinese sources, it was reported later that the unsuspecting missionaries were bayoneted to death and their bodies burned to ashes. Their offense was sympathy for the Chinese. When the story spread over the country, it struck terror to the hearts of all foreigners.
6:28 No one knows the facts concerning a Pentecostal missionary known as Leonard, a middle-aged cripple in Taiyuan, Shansi Province. He mysteriously disappeared. His wife Eleanor was so horror-stricken that she could give no coherent account of what had happened. When she was found alone in her room, she was prostrated and half-conscious. Efforts to piece her vague, disconnected words together revealed the information that her husband was pulled out of bed at night, gagged, tied, and dragged away bleeding. The Japanese were the only ones who knew what had become of him.
6:29 On December 5, 1937, when the American Board Mission Hospital in Tsechow was taking care of many wounded Chinese, Japanese military authorities tried to remove five of them. The hospital authorities refused, on humanitarian grounds, to give the Japanese the necessary permission, explaining that the removal would mean certain death to the patients. Several days later the Japanese forcibly entered the hospital and took the patients away. This was only one of hundreds of such cases.
6:30 The American people do not want war. The Japanese army and navy want war because they believe it is only by war that they can achieve their purpose of becoming the dominant race in the Far East. Looting, raping, and bombing conquered territories are a part of their terroristic campaign, and even seem to be enjoyed by them as sports are enjoyed by Americans. At first the Japanese were satisfied with shooting Chinese, either combatant or civilian. But they soon became tired of shooting Chinese only, and now and then they find it amusing to turn their guns on a white man or two, to terrorize, if not actually to kill, them.
6:31 The story of Professor H. C. Brownell of Burlington, Vermont, is typical of many such incidents. He was head professor at Lingnan University. While he was investigating a Japanese sentry post on the university campus on December 1, 1938, Japanese soldiers fired over his head, as if for sport. Of course, he was frightened. This was a huge joke, and they had a good laugh. The irate professor protested to the Japanese officer, fully expecting him to order an investigation or offer that the Yung Kan Yim[5] (old gentleman) was sick and Dr. Rhee could not leave. Indeed, my father was sick and I could not leave. although I would not have gone anyway.
6:32 The party, made up of practically all the outstanding leaders of Protestant churches and Y.M.C.A.'s throughout Korea, arrived in Japan. From the time of their arrival to the final hour of their stay, they were entertained with sight-seeing trips to scenic spots, famous temples and shrines, and other great buildings, old and modern. At dinners, banquets, and public meetings they attended, news reporters greeted them and requested interviews. The following day "interviews" came out in the papers in which Reverend, Doctor, or Mr. So and So, was quoted as having said that Japan was a great nation and that it was a good thing for Korea to be under Japanese rule. In this way the Japanese tried to make the Koreans believe that Japan was the most powerful nation on earth and that the Koreans should dismiss any dream of ever being independent again. In addition, the Japanese were deliberately putting these leaders in a false light before the eyes of their congregations at home. When the Korean Christians read these news reports, some of them, the Japanese thought, would be influenced to think Korean independence was a hopeless dream. Also, it was thought, most of them would condemn their leaders for making such unpatriotic utterances. Many churches in Korea did suffer as a result, because of their young people dropping out. The leaders were unable to explain or correct the reports.
6:33 One evening, when Japan's Korean guests were entertained at a great banquet attended by the Prime Minister and many other government officials, the former inquired which of the guests was Yi Sang Chai. Some one pointed out one of the most plain, democratic looking men in the group. He was, in fact, the most famous man in Korea, known among Christians in America as the Tolstoi of Korea. In his early days, he was the first secretary of the Korean Legation in Washington, and for many years served in the former Korean government in various capacities as one of its high officers. His official and public career was full of interesting and inspiring incidents illustrating his brilliant wisdom and sense of humor. The Japanese Cabinet ministers knew of his presence among the party and were expecting to learn at close range what kind of a man he was. When the Premier saw him, he asked the toastmaster to call on the honorable Yi Sang Chai for a speech. The toastmaster paid Yi Sang Chai high tribute in his introductory remarks and said the gathering would like to hear a few words from this distinguished guest from Korea. Mr. Yi quietly stepped forward and said, in substance:
6:34
6:35 The Japanese ministers looked at one another, nodded their heads, and said, "That is true." This speech was printed and reprinted in all the newspapers in Japan, and those who read it may also have assented that it was true. If they did, is it not self-evident that, judging from what she has been doing in Korea and China, Japan cannot last long as a powerful nation? At all events, the results of this trip were not a complete success, for Japan's attempts to alienate Korean Christians from foreign missions.
6:36 Governor-general Terauchi abandoned the peaceful plan and decided to resort to force. This led to what is known as "The Christian Conspiracy Case of 1911."
6:37 The Korean leaders knew what was brewing, because the Japanese police and their Korean hirelings were detailed to watch every one of us, so that there could be no possibility of escape. I remember that the Korean secret service man Yoon Piunghi, known as the most notorious of all the San Yung Kai[6], (hunting dogs) -a term applied by the Koreans to all those hired by the Japanese- was assigned to "look after" Baron Yun Chi Ho and myself, because we were both associated with the Central Y.M.C.A. in Seoul. These men were instructed to circulate all sorts of wild rumors about the leaders having been thrown into dungeons, where they had been tortured to death, etc., with the hope that we might feel forced to submit to them. I had a small room arranged for myself in the attic of the Y.M.C.A. building, and sometimes I went there for the night. One dark night, I had my room boy, In Gil, help me burn up some of the papers and documents in my files and store the rest under the roof, because the police would seize every scrap of paper in my possession. The next day, very early in the morning, my father came to the building with tears in his eyes, and asked everybody he met, "Do you know what has happened to my son? They have tortured him and broken his legs. He is nearly dead, Yoon Piunghi told me." My father was the happiest man on earth when he found me safe and sound in my attic room.
6:38 Many others, more than a hundred in number, were going through more or less the same experience at the time. We realized we were in danger and were prepared for the worst. If I had remained in Korea a few months longer, I would have been thrown into a dark prison cell, from which I would not have emerged alive. How my life was spared so many times through all the stormy days in Korea is like a series of miracles, which alone would fill an interesting volume. This was, no doubt, one of those occasions in which an unseen hand intervened and led me out of difficulties humanly insurmountable. All that I can say here is that while those noble Christian martyrs were left in the hands of their persecutors, I was enabled to leave the country and return to the United States, the land of the free.
6:39 The most prominent Christians throughout the country were arrested on a charge of conspiring to assassinate the Governor-general. They were tortured in preliminary "examinations" to extract "confessions" from them. The confessions were made up by the police in advance and the prisoners were forced to sign them. If the sympathy and indignation of the Christian world had not been sufficiently aroused in behalf of these innocent men, the signatures attached to charges of a murder conspiracy would have gone down in history as unmistakable proof of their guilt.
6:40 Things did not turn out as the Japanese had intended, and the court was compelled, by the irresistible force of public sentiment, to give the victims a new trial in open session. In this trial, the prisoners repudiated their signatures. Yet nine of the accused men were exiled without trial, three were known to have died as a direct result of torture, and 123 were turned over to the district court of Seoul for trial on June 28, 1912. At this farcical trial, no witness for the defense was permitted, and the final decision was based entirely on "confessions" wrung by torture. Judgment was pronounced on September 29, and 126 men were sentenced to terms of imprisonment ranging from five to six years.
6:41 The Japanese thought they had been highly successful in crushing the unconquerable spirit of the Korean Christians. However, that was not the end. It was but the beginning. The Japanese had come to know that so long as some of the leading American missionaries- whom the Koreans regarded as their guardian saints- were left unconquered, the Koreans would again develop their spirit of independence, and new leaders would come up in place of the old.
6:42 Therefore, it was necessary for them to get rid of some of these Americans. A secret plan was concocted to bring into court the names of Dr. Horace Underwood and several others as accomplices in a conspiracy against the life of the Governor-general. The men who had died under torture during the preliminary examinations by the police had chosen death rather than signing their names to the forged statement implicating their missionary friends in the plot.
6:43 The American press soon began to dig into the facts. The mission boards kept the wires hot between New York, Tokyo, and Seoul, demanding detailed information concerning the case. Dr. Arthur J. Brown, secretary of the Presbyterian Foreign Board in New York, published "The Korean Conspiracy Case," revealing how the entire episode was framed and why J.K. Ohl, Peking correspondent of The New York Herald, was hurriedly dispatched to Seoul to report on the trial. The latter's correspondence was published in a series of articles disclosing the whole fabrication by the police and the court. Dr. W.W Pinson, secretary of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, hurried to Korea for the sole purpose of investigating the case. Dr. Charles W. Eliot, President Emeritus of Harvard University then in Tokyo, publicly declared that the standing of Japan among civilized nations would be improved by judicious modification of the preliminary proceedings against the alleged criminals. Churches in the United States were reported to be holding special prayer meetings for the persecuted Christians in Korea.
6:44 This was the time when Japan was still endeavoring to appear in the eyes of the world as a good, well-behaved neighbor, and she could not afford to ignore the rising tide of American sentiment against her. The Japanese Governor-general, who had adopted the use of force, found it necessary to instruct the Court of Appeals to retry the Koreans and to use "conciliatory" methods in conducting the proceedings. As a result of the new trial, all the prisoners, with the exception of the six most prominent leaders, were set free. Of the six, five were sentenced to six years' penal servitude, and one to five years'. This was nothing but a face-saving process, with no reason why some should be held and others released. The Presbyterian Foreign Mission Board in New York made an official representation to the Japanese Embassy in Washington inquiring as to the cause of the Koreans' conviction. Some time later the Mission Board was quietly approached by semiofficial representatives of the Japanese Embassy with the suggestion that the Japanese Government would acquit them as a matter of special favor, if the American Missions would admit their guilt and appeal for clemency. This was categorically refused. The accused men were detained in damp, dark cells until they were finally released under an amnesty designed to show the "Imperial clemency" in honor of the coronation of the new Emperor. Thus ended the story of the so-called Christian conspiracy in Korea.
6:45 However, it was by no means the end of persecution of Korean Christians. During the passive revolution of 1919 in Korea, all the mission hospitals were filled with Koreans wounded by Japanese swords, bayonets, and firemen's hooks. Under medical care, some of them were struggling for life. The "civilized" Japanese forcibly took from the hospitals all "dangerous" Koreans, in spite of the fact that their removal meant certain death to them. Koreans tried to make these facts known to America through news reports, but they were regarded as anti-Japanese propaganda stories, which the American public would not believe. The world has been changing since, and no one in America now would regard such reports as false propaganda.
6:46 As an aftermath of this memorable uprising hundreds of Christians in Korea, Kirin, Chientao, as well as those along the Siberian border, were massacred wholesale, their churches burned, and in many places in the interior whole villages destroyed. The only crime charged against them was their participation in the passive, nonviolent revolution which had been supported by the entire nation, including, besides the Christians, Buddhists, Confucians, and Chundoists. Yet the Christians were the ones crucified for the "crime" of the whole nation.
6:47 Of the innumerable cases of Japanese atrocities committed during this period, the one in Chi Am-ni is the most notorious. When we say most notorious, we refer to cases known in America. What is known among the Koreans in their homeland does not count. The Koreans cannot keep any written account of these incidents, nor can eyewitnesses of wholesale murders relate the stories, even among themselves. When it is asked how one of the victims of these atrocities died, all the answer the victim's friends or relatives can give is a shrug of the shoulders or a shake of the head. The destruction of life and property suffered by the Koreans can never be recorded, because the dead cannot speak and the living dare not. The cases we refer to were accounts given in writing by foreigners who knew the facts. Some of these accounts were printed in books and pamphlets, which were distributed to libraries and clubs in America. Now few of these copies can be found, because the Japanese have made systematic efforts to destroy them wherever possible. But newspapers of those days and the Congressional Record preserve many of the stories safe from Japanese destruction. The author has carefully collected and preserved copies of most of them.
6:48 Now, to return to the Chi Am-ni massacre of April 15, 1919. Japanese soldiers had entered the village of Chi Am-ni, some seventeen miles from Suwon in the southern part of Korea, and had issued orders that all adult male Christians were to hear a lecture to be given in the church. Twenty-nine men went as ordered. They were soon surrounded by the soldiers, who shot at them through the windows. When most of them had been killed or wounded, the Japanese set fire to the building. Those who rushed out to escape were either bayoneted or shot to death. Six bodies were found outside the church. Two women, whose husbands were in the burning church, and who tried to reach their husbands, were brutally murdered. One of them, nineteen years of age, was bayoneted to death, while the other, about forty years old, was shot. Both of them were Christians. When this was over, the soldiers set the village on fire and left.
6:49 In a brief account of the experience of her husband, a missionary said that on March 4, 1919, he heard the cry, Mansei(Long live Korea), and rushed downtown. He was gone for about an hour. He came back, crying aloud,"My God, such a sight." Japanese coolies, armed with firehooks and clubs, were tearing and rending the unarmed Koreans to shreds! He saw one man dragged along by two coolies, his head gashed open and one leg dragging limp.
6:50 Many other horrible stories are too repulsive for print. Such was the Japanese barbarism, a massacre unsurpassed by the Turk or the Hun. If it had been committed under any other flag, it would have brought down storms of protests and denunciations from every part of the globe. But since it was done under the cover of the flag of the Rising Sun, the nations were all deaf and dumb for fear they might offend these little Huns of the East.
6:51 What the Japanese did to the Christians in Korea they have been doing to the Christians in China[7]. The native Christians are not the only ones to suffer. The missionaries are bound to suffer as well. They have already suffered a great deal in China at the hands of the Japanese, but it is only a beginning. The worst is yet to come. To know what took place before is to know what may follow after. A story or two of mistreatment of missionaries in Korea, which happened after the Independence Uprising of 1919, will be of particular interest.
6:52 A most notorious case was that of Rev. Eli M. Mowry of Mansfield, Ohio. He was a professor in the Union Christian College in Seoul[8] and principal of the Boys and Girls High School in Pyeng Yang. He was arrested on a charge of harboring "criminals" in his house. The "criminals" were five students of his college, together with his Korean secretary. He was tried one day after his accusation, thus making it impossible for him to secure a lawyer in his defense. After he was tried and convicted, his friends were notified that they could have obtained a postponement. He was sentenced to six months' imprisonment at hard labor. Later, the term was reduced to four months. Another appeal to a still higher court ended the case by payment of a one-hundred-yen fine. To add insult to injury, the Japanese police led the Rev. Mr. Mowry off to prison in the Oriental foolscap.
6:53 A similar case, differently treated, was that of Rev. John Thomas, a British subject. He was touring in South Choong Chung Province, Korea. On March 20, he was suddenly attacked by Japanese soldiers and civilians, without the slightest provocation, while he was quietly standing by the roadside. When he produced his passport, it was thrown on the ground and stamped on, as was also a preaching permit which had been given him by the Japanese government. Once a man of splendid physique, the beatings he received reduced him to a physical wreck. He displayed twenty-nine wounds on his body when examined at a Mission hospital. As a result, he withdrew from the Korean mission field, being no longer physically able to continue.
6:54 The British Consul General at Seoul promptly took the matter up with the Japanese authorities. The Japanese apologized for the assault and 5,000 yen ($2,500) was paid as damages. This is a high tribute to the respect the Japanese government had for British subjects, when we consider that not even nominal apologies were offered when American women were assaulted by Japanese soldiers.
6:55 The comment made by The Japan Chronicle on "The Attack on Mr. Thomas" is worthy of note:
6:56 The manner in which this case was handled may be instructively compared with the sort of demands which would be made if such a thing had happened to a Japanese citizen in China or elsewhere, and the silence of the Japanese press on the subject may be compared with the storm which would have broken had the nationalities been different. Even the Seoul press heard nothing of Mr. Thomas's case.
6:57 If the Mowry case had taken place in 1940, the United States government would not have allowed a citizen of Mr. Mowry's character and standing to suffer without protest. But the attitude of the White House and the State Department toward the Japanese in those years was different, and it was not Mr. Mowry but the United States which really was humiliated.
6:58 Missionaries are human, like the rest of mankind. The persecution so persistently and systematically carried on was too cruel to be borne. They had either to yield or to leave the country. Indeed, a few left Korea later and some were expelled by the Japanese, while most of them remained as "friends" of Japan. Those who remain "speak for Japan," whenever they must. Those who left Korea say nothing openly against Japan, "for fear" the remaining missionaries may suffer. Yet it is to be hoped that no missionary will abandon his loyal friendship for China, even if he must leave the field for the time being. Public sentiment in this country will never be deceived as it was during those sad days in Korea.
6:59 There are many people who still believe that America has no business interfering in the affairs of other continents. A large number of people say that American war preparation is for national defense only and that Americans will defend themselves only when attacked. Those who say this do not know that the United States is already under attack. If you had been on the U.S.S. Panay, on December 12, 1937, and had escaped with your life, you would never forget that you had been deliberately attacked. If you were among the American refugees in one of the American-owned universities, mission stations, or hospitals in China during the Japanese bombing raids, you will never say that Americans are not under attack merely because as yet no enemy plane has come over and dropped bombs on the grounds of Yale, Harvard, or Princeton, or on Walter Reed Hospital. The only difference is that China is thousands of miles away, while Harvard, Princeton, Yale, and Walter Reed Hospital are here in our midst. So many Americans feel that they need not care what happens so far away. Yet no one can successfully assert that Americans in China are not Americans because they are far away, and that only those at home are the ones who count. Americans are Americans wherever they may be. The enemies who attack them over there are attacking the people here. Therefore, it is not true that America is not under attack, nor is it true that America is at peace with Japan and has no business to interfere in the Orient.
6:60 Furthermore, if Americans are really determined to keep themselves out of war, would it not be wise to keep the war from American shores, instead of allowing the war to come nearer and nearer? How can one fail to see the wisdom of sending all the material assistance possible to the Chinese and Koreans in order to enable them to keep the Japanese busy and hence unable to challenge the United States? Years ago, the United States government did not protest against Japan's taking of Korea. Later, America did not stop Japan from taking Manchuria. Now Japan is engaged in trying to conquer China. Japan was permitted to embark on these ventures because the world did not then see through her design. Now the world understands. And Americans see clearly that if the United States packs up and leaves China, she will have to withdraw also from the Philippines, Guam, and her other Pacific possessions. Then her first line of defense on the West will be the Hawaiian Islands and the Pacific coast. Would such a withdrawal mean peace? No, it would lure Japan on to greater adventure. Those who still insist on such a policy are blind to the menace. A true peace policy for the United States to pursue at this juncture is to give all the material aid possible to every nation in Europe that will fight for its independence, and to the Chinese and Koreans in Asia.
6:61 On October 7, 1940, the Japanese government announced simultaneously in Seoul and Tokyo that all the denominational Christian churches in Japan and Korea were dissolved and placed under government supervision through a new organization to be known as the Association of Christian Superintendence. The main object of this move was declared to be "the elimination of all foreign influence and to condemn Communism, individualism, and all other doctrines inconsistent with the Japanese national policy.[9]
6:62 The churches in China will soon be put under similar control by the Japanese government.
Ⅶ. THE LADYBIRD AND THE PANAY INCIDENTS
7:1 About six weeks after the commencement of the Sino-Japanese conflict, the invasion troops had so securely established themselves in the occupied territories that they began to make wholesale attacks on foreigners in China. Of all the foreigners residing in China, the Americans and Britons were the hardest for them to subjugate. All the others, realizing their helplessness, succumbed to the inevitable and made little or no resistance. But the citizens of the two English- speaking powers were different.
7:2 These two nations have been enjoying the highest privileges socially, economically, and otherwise, and the Chinese look upon them as superior to Oriental peoples, including the Japanese. In their attempt to put themselves above the Chinese, the Japanese were determined to ride roughshod over the foreigners in order that the Yamato race would come to be regarded as superior even to the white man. Furthermore, the Chinese must be put completely under their control in the conquered territories, and it was essential for them to oust all those who refused to submit to their authority. Therefore, the English, who did everything they could to help build up the Island Empire, have had to take their medicine at the hands of their erstwhile ally, Japan. Of all attacks on foreigners, the three most serious cases are the wounding of the British Ambassador to China, the aerial attack on the British gunboat Ladybird, and the bombing and sinking of the U.S.S. Panay.
7:3 On August 26, 1937, the British Ambassador to China, Sir Hughe Knatchbull-Hugessen was machine-gunned and seriously wounded by Japanese aviators near Shanghai while he was traveling in his automobile, which was flying the Union Jack. The British government took a firm attitude and demanded an apology, indemnity, and assurance against a recurrence. According to the Japanese version, in their first ad interim reply, two Japanese planes machine-gunned and bombed two motor cars after mistaking them for military motors and lorries carrying Chinese soldiers. Furthermore, they claimed there was "no actual evidence that the British Ambassador was wounded by the Japanese." The note further suggested that authorities in Shanghai should secure a permit from the Japanese army headquarters for passage through any of the war zones, so as to prevent the recurrence of such incidents.
7:4 This, of course, failed to satisfy the Foreign Office in London. Consequently, a second note was sent through the British Ambassador to Tokyo, Sir Robert L. Craigie, stating that the Japanese note was disappointing to the British government and that they were preparing to publish the "whole text of the Japanese reply." Public indignation in London toward Japan was growing tense at that time. Therefore, the Japanese Foreign Office sent a second reply, expressing its regrets over the incident in these words:
7:5
7:6 This reply quieted, to some extent, the tense feeling in London. The final British note to the Japanese government said this communication was satisfactory to the British government. Consequently, both declared the incident to be closed.
7:7 The "apologizing telegram from Japan" is typical of the oft-repeated story of the Samurai, who during the early feudal days carried three swords signifying the right to kill in one day three of his enemies. One day, while under the influence of sake (wine) he saw, at a distance, one of his enemies coming toward him. He pulled out one of his swords and waited until the other man came near. He then stepped forward and stabbed him to death. When he looked at the face of the dead man, he discovered that it was not that of his enemy at all. Alas, he had killed an innocent person! He bowed and apologized to the dead man, "Please pardon me." The proud Japanese, who fondly tell this Samurai story, may expect the world to regard them as the S amurai of old, having all privileges of killing with impunity three enemies a day, with an apology the only obligation in case of error.
7:8 Under ordinary circumstances, if such an international crime were perpetrated against Great Britain, in addition to the wholesale attacks made on British subjects and property, the entire British Commonwealth would have been up in arms, clamoring for immediate retaliation, if not war. Britain, however, has not been in a position recently to speak boldly to Japan, and Japan took the psychological moment to demonstrate her superior military strength.
7:9 H.M.S. “Ladybird”
7:10 On December 6, 1937, and again on the 13th, during air raids in Nanking and Wuhu, Japanese planes bombed the British gunboat Ladybird while she was anchored in the Yangtze about fifty miles from Nanking. One British seaman was killed and three were injured, including Commander H. D. Barlow and Captain George O’Donnell. At the same time, Japanese shore batteries fired on three other British gunboats, the Butterfield, Cricket, Scarab.[10] Three British-owned merchantmen, Tatung, and Tuckwo, and Suiws[11] were also subjected to Japanese gunfire and aerial attacks.
7:11 Miss Wilma May, of Allentown, Pa., one of the nurses in the American hospital at Wuhu, described the scene as follows:
7:12 United States gunboat, Panay, was either an accident or a mistake. The Japanese at first absolutely denied it, as though it had never happened. If United States authorities had been easy with them, as in the past, the Japanese might have succeeded in their efforts to get by with impunity. But the United States was firm in its attitude and made public all the reports of eyewitnesses, together with movie films of the actual scene, which left no loophole for an alibi. Step by step, the Japanese were forced to yield, until, finally, they confessed their guilt and paid an indemnity.
7:13 On December 12, 1937, Japanese forces moved their big guns nearer the Yangtze River and, after a short pause, poured terrific artillery fire on the Nanking defenders. Many shells landed in the river, some projectiles dropping near the U.S.S. Panay, while some fell uncomfortably close to several British gunboats anchored alongside. Lieutenant Commander J. J. Hughes, in charge of the Panay, ordered the gunboat to move further up the river, so as to get out of the shower of shells. While moving slowly up river, seven Americans, including a magazine writer, a Universal newsreel photographer, and a Movietone cameraman, were picked up by a small boat and brought aboard. The British boats also were slowly moving out of range. It was soon discovered, however, that both the American and British boats were heading directly into the rain of shells. Huge splashes on the river, only a few hundred yards ahead, clearly showed that they were drawing nearer all the time. Now and then, at about fifteen-second intervals, shells hit both sides of the river. As the Panay slowly but deliberately steamed on, shells dropped and burst as if to warn against her going further. All this time the crew and passengers, who were mostly American refugees from the war zone, kept unusually cheerful and jolly, trying to take things lightly. Commander Hughes and his men were calm and unexcited. The newsreel cameramen were telling stories, and passengers listened with unusual jocularity. But the strain was evident.
7:14 The Panay was engaged under lawful orders in her immediate mission to protect United States nationals and maintain communications between the U.S. Embassy at Nanking and the Ambassador at Hankow.
7:15 At 9:45 o'clock that morning, Japanese troops on the right bank of the river signaled the Panay and sent aboard an officer accompanied by sailors with fixed bayonets. The Japanese officer spoke broken English. He had a lot of questions to ask. Commander Hughes explained that the United States was a friend of both China and Japan and that he was convoying the Standard Oil tankers some twenty-eight miles above Nanking in order to keep clear of artillery fire. After a short interview, the Japanese left, giving no warning of possible attack or bombing.
7:16 The Panay had anchored before the incident in an open space of the river, clearly visible for miles on either side. At about 1:20 P.M. a lookout reported bombers at a height of 4,000 feet, which came rapidly lower, until the time of the attack, 1:27 to 2:25 P.M., the altitude ranging from 100 to 200 feet. Both planes went into power dives, and immediately released three bombs, two of which fell in the river near the ship, the fragments tearing holes below the water line. The third one was a direct hit, disabling the forward three-inch gun, and hurling Captain Hughes against the wheel and breaking his leg. The force of the concussion tossed furniture about in the ship's office, seriously wounding a clerk. Everyone thought the attack was a mistake. Horizontal U.S. flags were freshly painted on the top deck fore and aft. There were seven American flags on the boat, and, as the weather was perfectly clear, one could not help seeing at least one or two of them. After a short interval, the Japanese planes came back, swooping directly toward the ship. More deafening explosions rocked the gunboat, throwing splinters of glass, wood, and steel in all directions. There were at least twenty direct hits. Meanwhile, the planes machine-gunned the decks, causing more casualties.
7:17 Commander Hughes, with his broken leg, lay unconscious for a few seconds. Lieutenant A. F. Anders had his throat badly gashed by a bomb fragment and was unable to speak. More planes swooped down and released more bombs. The crew of the gunboat rushed to the machine guns and began firing furiously at the attacking planes. Two men, including Anders, dropped to the floor beside their guns, hit by flying missiles. The diving planes soon took cognizance of the Panay's guns and kept at a respectable height for the rest of the half hour of bombing. The commander was unable to get up, and was still bleeding profusely. Anders could not shout his orders on account of his wounded throat. Seeing the gunboat sinking, he scribbled on a blood-smeared chart the order to abandon ship. The most seriously wounded men were carried to one of the ship's motor sampans, which was rapidly lowered and sent ashore. One of the Japanese planes dived directly toward the boat with a burst of machine-gun fire. One wounded man was hit by a machine-gun bullet on that first sampan trip. The sampan was the only means of transportation; it had to make many trips for the men aboard the sinking vessel. When all the men had been landed, the upper deck of the Panay was under water. Two Japanese planes circled over the disappearing gunboat, while a Japanese naval vessel loaded with soldiers steamed hastily toward it. The survivors thought the Japanese were searching for them and hid among the reeds until the planes and launch turned away. They watched the Panay go down in the swirling Yangtze, stern first, with colors still flying. The casualty list included three known dead and eighteen wounded, eleven seriously.
7:18 In face of the Japanese contention, the United States left no stone unturned to obtain all factual evidence possible in order to avoid miscarriage of justice in the Panay dispute. A four-man Court of Inquiry was instituted and it convened on December 17, 1937, aboard the U.S.S. Augusta, further to investigate the incident. The court was instructed to examine as many of the survivors as possible and was empowered to subpoena witnesses if necessary. In case anyone examined proved to be guilty of offensive conduct, the court was to recommend a verdict to Admiral Yarnell. All witnesses were to be asked if they saw any blameworthy actions during the incident. The sessions of the court were in secret, but the records of the procedure could be released in Washington if the Navy Department decided to make them public.
7:19 Japanese Version
7:20 The Japanese first attempted to confuse the issue by confusing the dates. The Japanese naval communiqué, dated December 13, Shanghai, said the bombing took place on Saturday the 11th and not Sunday the 12th. Mistaking three vessels belonging to the Standard Vacuum Company for Chinese boats, the Imperial aircraft bombed them, it said. Next day, the Japanese authorities became involved in the meshes of their own deceit. The main object in destroying the lives and property of Americans in China was to force them to withdraw without bringing about a showdow
- ↑ 천황(天皇)
- ↑ Admiral Yarnell's report, made on December 11, 1939, agrees with this figure. Chinese soldiers killed in battle numbered 1,218,462. The number of men, women and children who died of starvation and privation is estimated to be between 5,000,000 and 10,000,000.
- ↑ Editor's note: The Japan Chronicle was not a daily newspaper. It was a weekly journal printed in the city of Kobe.
- ↑ Editor's note: Several newspaper articles from the U.S. in the 1930s mention, '...the New Zealand Presbyterian Hospital at Hongchung, 30 miles north of Canton,...' Syngman Rhee must have referred to these articles when writing this book. According to a letter by E. G. (Paddy) Jansen (chief New Zealand official and head of the South China Mission), documents, and historical maps, it is presumed that the bombing occurred on January 14 and 15. According to Myke Tymons (curator of photographs at Presbyterian Archives Research Centre in New Zealand), there is no mention of "Hongchung" in the archives. After looking through maps and land titles, he found only mentions of "Kong Chuen", and the name of the hospital was Kong Chuen Hospital. The hospital was located at Kong Chuen. This is more than likely a misnomer derived from a pronunciation error.
- ↑ Editor's note: 'Yeong Gam Nim' is closer to the proper pronunciation.
- ↑ Editor's note: The spelling 'Sa-nyang Gae' is closer to the exact pronunciation.
- ↑ See Reader's Digest, July, 1938, "The Sack of Nanking"; October, 1938,"We Were in Nanking"
- ↑ Editor's note: The Union Christian College was the English name of Pyongyang Soongsil College, which was founded by Rev. Dr. William M. Baird in 1897. Soongsil College, originally established in Pyongyang (Pyeng Yang), was the first modern university in Korea. It was later closed in 1938 as the American missionaries and professors made a decision to stop running schools in order to protest the Japanese policy of enforcing Japanese Shinto worship, even in Presbyterian educational institutes. In 1954, Soongsil University was reopened in Seoul after the Korean War. Mowry appealed the decision of the Pyongyang District Court and his trials were held at the Gyungsung(Seoul) Court of Review and then the Superior Court in Seoul in 1919. Rev. Mowry, who left Korea in 1941, spent most of his time around Pyongyang serving as a Reverend, professor, and principal while he was in Korea. After examining more than 10 years of historical data, it can be concluded that 'Seoul' in this sentence should be corrected to 'Pyeng Yang.'
- ↑ An Associated Press dispatch of October 7, 1940, from Seoul, Korea, stated:
"Old denominational organizations embracing some 60,000 Korean Christians were dissolved today and a new organization was set up in keeping with Japan's policy of placing religious associations under government supervision and eliminating foreign influence. A new program formulated for the organization, which took the name 'Association of Christian Superintendence,' stipulated that it would be free of foreign influence and would condemn communism, individualism, democracy, and doctrines inconsistent with Japanese national policy. All schools of the dissolved groups will be reorganized. Military drill will be enforced in all these schools and Christians will be encouraged to volunteer services during emergencies and to visit shrines of the Japanese national religion, Shinto."
The Washington Evening Star reported the following:
"Kansas City, October 8, 1940. On the eve of the opening of the general convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church, the National Council took preliminary steps today toward reorganization of the church in Japan. The Council adopted resolutions... to approve such reorganization as might seem advisable. The transfer to the Episcopal Church in Japan of $420,000 in endowment funds, now held in New York city banks by the National Council for St. Luke's International Hospital in Tokyo, would be permitted if the fund was found to belong to the Japanese branch. Under the new Religious Bodies Act adopted by the Japanese government the Episcopal Church is faced with the prospect of being forced to withdraw its sixty American ecclesiastical, missionary, and medical workers and stop its annual support of about $500,000 for various institutions."There is no doubt, the Council stated, that a large measure of control over the institutions, including St. Luke's Hospital, will pass to official Japanese hands, but Bishop Tucker and bishops of the Japanese dioceses said they were hopeful that a way might be found to continue some financial aid to enable the eight hundred Japanese who staff the institutions to keep the work going.
"October 17 has been set by the Japanese government as the date when foreign financial support must stop and the church must appoint a liaison officer who is a Japanese." - ↑ Editor's note: While the ship names of ‘Cricket’ and ‘Scarab’ could be confirmed, there is no record of a ship named Buttefield. These ships were called lnsect-class gunboats, built for patrolling rivers and named after insects. When Syngman Rhee published Japan Inside Out in 1941, ‘Scarat’ was written instead of ‘Scarab’. He could not have known the detailed tradition of the Royal Navy in terms of naming ships. There existed 4 gunboats of the Royal Navy that were under fire in the Yangtze River in 1937. They were the Ladybird, Bee, Cricket, and Scarab. It can be concluded that Scarat is a typo of Scarab. lf Syngman Rhee had intended to mention 4 gunboats, Butterfield should have been written as Bee. However, the name Buttefield is too distinct to be a misinterpretation of Bee. Most importantly, Butterfield is not the name of an Insect-class gunboat. After several years of research, no ship named the Butterfield could be found among those built in the history of the Royal Navy. Only the name of the 'Butterfield and Swire Company', a trading company established in Shanghai, could be found. Syngman Rhee might have misapplied the name of a company in China as the name of a gunboat.
- ↑ Editor's note : The ship names of the ‘Tatung,’ and ‘Tatung’ and ‘Tuckwo’ could be confirmed, but there was no record of the ‘Suiws’. In some materials relating to the attack at the Yangtze River in December 1937, the steamer ‘Suiwo,’ not ‘Suiws,’ was mentioned. It is very likely that ‘Suiws’ was a typo of ‘Suiwo’
