PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT TAKES A HAND

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PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT TAKES A HAND

November 30, 1938

In September the emphasis was all on the European crisis. Now,
so far as we are concerned, all has shifted back to Japan, but I am
writing this at the very end of November, and so much has taken
place since then that it is difficult to remember just what took place
in October and what in November. The principal events, of course,
were the fall of Hankow and the fall of Canton. The Japanese
suddenly landed in Bias Bay and pushed on into Canton with
astonishing rapidity, practically unopposed. Of course the Japanese
public assumes that the war is now practically at an end, and care-
fully regimented lantern parades by way of celebrating took place
in Tokyo for several days. But the authorities have told them that
they have a long way to go still. Of course there is no telling how
long Chiang can hold his forces together, but at least they are still
there, some of them, withdrawn but not annihilated, and so long
as those forces exist at all, I don't see how Japan can risk weakening
her lines and her forces of occupation.

The most important diplomatic demarche took place at the very
beginning of October. It began with a long telegram from the
Department, dated October i, authorizing me in my discretion
to present a long note to the Foreign Office covering pretty much
the whole field of Japanese interference with American interests in
China, including such subjects as the Open Door and equal oppor-
tunity, monopolies, exchange control, custom tariff, telephone and
telegraph communications, wharves and shipping, trade on the
Yangtze, restrictions on Americans desiring to return to their property,
Japanese interference with railway traffic, censorship of mail and
telegrams, etc. etc.

The text of the telegram, as it was laid on my desk, said that the
President, in the light of the situation herein reviewed, asks that
the Japanese Government forthwith implement its assurances already
given with regard to the Open Door and to non-interference with
American rights by taking prompt measures, and adding that the
Government of the United States believes that in the interest of
relations between the United States and Japan an early reply would
be helpful. I had no reason whatever to doubt that the President
had sent this message. He had done so once before in another
matter, and the importance of the representations now to be made
folly justified, in my opinion, the use and force of his name; in fact,
I recognized at once the important opening which it gave me to ask
for an immediate interview with the Prime Minister, who was still
acting as Minister for Foreign Affairs ad interim but was not yet
receiving the diplomats.

As a matter of fact, the President sent no such message. The word
" President" was purely and simply a code garble*