here can be no peaceful war.
MAY THERE BE A
PACIFIC WAR?
‘By Edward J. Urquhart
Missionary in Korea
ih Tew > ELDOM has an historical
A A event of continental propor-
XD 0 tions visited this world that
was not clearly discernible,
by the careful observer at
least, years in advance. World
movements do not usually come with
the sudden shaking of the earthquake,
they come rather with the accumulative
movement of the storm—the change of
temperature, the shift of air currents,
the gathering of clouds, and the elec-
trical disturbance.
It was so before the Battle of Bunker
Hill ignited the fires that purified a
continent and produced a nation; it was
so before the cannonading at Fort
Sumter threatened to tear that nation
asunder and only succeeded in welding
it more firmly together; it was so before
German artillery opened a gateway into
Belgium and a sluiceway into the world
that has filled it with problems that
threaten even civilization itself. In
each of these instances keen discern-
ment, adequate knowledge, fitting prop-
aganda, and proper legislation could
have averted the catastrophe, or at
least have mitigated its fury. However,
I do not wish to deal with the past
except as a brief notation of facts to
help us to grasp more clearly a present-
day problem—one that is as sinister
as any that has gone before, one that
is as titanic in proportions, and one
that 1s as vital to you.
RevoLT SEETHES EVERYWHERE
@ That problem centers in the East.
Do you know that the whole East
from Siberia to the Malay Archipelago
and from Japan to Tibet is in decided
revolt against the white race? In some
sections, of course, this revolt is in
embryo, hardly discernible. And in
other sections it is indefinite, shaping
PAGE TEN
The signing of the historic ‘“ Protocol of Changchun,” on
September 15, 1932, by which Japan recognized the inde-
pendence of Manchukuo, the new government of Manchuria.
and reshaping, first inactive and then
aggressive. However, it is active and
intensive in certain sections and more
definite as to range. As for instance: The
Indian revolt is seething and is directed
against England; the Japanese revolt
lies in propaganda and is directed
primarily against the United States.
It is this last-stated phase of the revolt
that I wish to consider.
CHANGE OF FEELINGS
Sixteen years ago, when I first came
into personal contact with the East,
the relationship of Japan and America
was one of particular friendliness and
good will. Roosevelt had championed
the cause of Japan against Russia;
America had allowed Japan a free hand
in Korea; and the Gentlemen’s Agree-
ment was functioning to the perfect
satisfaction of Japan. Thus things went
on for several years. It is true that
America’s prolonged hold on the Philip-
pines was disappointing; that America’s
increased trade relations with China
was a disturbing factor; and that
America’s strength on the Pacific was
looked upon as a decided menace. It is
also true that American residents in
Japan, whether missionaries or business
men, unconsciously on their part no
doubt, proclaimed America’s superiority
complex, as the Japanese took it—the
domineering character of the American
people in general and of the American
government in particular—and the
proclaiming of that complex filled the
Japanese with fear because of the
possible fruitage of that attitude.
Then came the Japanese Exclusion
Act by the United States Congress,
which turned avenues of doubt and
suspicion into highways of fear and
resentment. And as the typhoons
sweep over the Insular Empire of the
East, so the tide of ill feelings en-
gendered by that act swept over Japan.
Immediately a flood of propaganda in all
its insidious and corrupting force was
turned loose in Japan to do its fiendish
work. How intense is that propaganda,
how insidious, how vitriolic, one can
judge only by close observation through
witnessing the thing together with its
effects. I wish to present a quotation
from K. Sato, a columnist, published
in the daily Osaka Mainichi, an English
periodical published and edited by
Japanese, reading as follows:
“Some startling discoveries might be
made if someone—the American Em-
bassy for instance—conducted a secret
inquiry into the cause of the persistent
anti-American propaganda spread in
Japan.
“There 1s something abnormal in
the quantity of literature dumped in
our midst, ultimately intended to
discredit the American people and their
civilization in the eyes of the Japanese.
Sowing SEEDS or HATE
“Almost every one of our numerous
periodicals, radical, conservative, or
insipid, contains some articles which,
if rendered into English and shown to
Americans, would make them furious.
“Not a week passes without some
sensational book being published, which
gives imaginary accounts of diplomatic
rupture, or naval or military warfare,
between the United States and Japan.
“Thanks to this sort of propaganda,
the Japanese public have been intro-
duced to murders in the underworld of
Chicago, to the voluptuous indulgence
of some wealthy decadents, to the inner
corruption of American politics, etc.
“The persistent education has borne
fruit and there have come into being a
growing number of credulous people
THE WATCHMAN MAGAZINE