122	THREE  YEARS  OF  CALM  BEFORE  THE STORM
Another colleague of mine recently read to me a dispatch he had
sent his Government and later, at my request, sent me a copy in
confidence. Among other things he says :
It is true, as	said (after a conversation with Ambassador
Dodd in Berlin), that the attitude of America towards Manchu-
kuo has not changed up to the present. I have given you my
opinion, namely, that the day when the United States sees an
advantage in it, she will not hesitate to abandon the Stimson
Doctrine which she is bound to no one to uphold. She did not
hesitate in 1920 to abandon the League of Nations notwithstand-
ing the fact that the Covenant was the work of her President.
This comparison shows a complete lack of familiarity with our system
of government. The so-called Stimson Doctrine is an executive
policy, and the recognition or non-recognition of foreign states is an
executive prerogative. Congress can pass resolutions but it cannot
send ambassadors without the approval and action of the executive.
Congress, however, was competent to refuse its approval of the Treaty
of Versailles comprising the Covenant of the League of Nations.
This same foreign diplomat went on to say that he continues to
believe that the Kellogg Pact should not have been considered as
applicable to the events in Manchuria, and he raises the point:
By virtue of the protocol of Peking of September i, 1901, the
United States (as well as France, England, Italy, and Belgium)
had the right to maintain garrisons in China—at Peking, Tientsin,
Sharihaikwan, and other points. Supposing that the American
garrison at Tientsin, which exists at present, which is numerous
and well equipped with modern armaments, should be led by
circumstances to use force to fulfil its normal mission and one
envisaged by the treaties; for example, to prevent a massacre
of American missionaries at 20 or even 100 kilometres from the
city. In such a case would Mr. Stimson maintain that the Chinese
frontier or the Kellogg Pact were violated ? No, because it would
be absurd. Nevertheless, he did maintain this in the case of the
Japanese military action in Manchuria, which was an absolutely
analogous case. Strict legality pushed to a certain point risks
becoming a challenge to elementary common sense.
The argument is weak and the analogy false. For a local foreign
garrison to make a sortie to protect life can hardly be held as analo-
gous to the action of a country in pouring tens of thousands of troops
into a foreign area, and conducting large-scale military operations
with the purpose and result of separating that area permanently
from its owner, I said so to my colleague, but he refused to
agree. He continues in his dispatch to argue that as long as
America and the League of Nations persist in their present attitude,