793.94/3070: Telegram
The Consul General at Shanghai (Cunningham) to the Secretary of State
[Received January 28—6:40 a.m.]
Following telegram has been sent to the Legation:
“January 28, 1 p.m. My January 27, 2 p.m.61 I learn both from Mayor and Japanese Consulate General that Japanese Consul General has given Mayor until 6 o’clock tonight to answer satisfactorily the Japanese demands. Mayor issued a proclamation last night suppressing the Anti-Japanese National Salvation Association. In conversation this morning the Mayor informed me that he had ordered the five branches of this association to close; that this was the only association which was actively seizing Japanese goods; that yesterday Japanese Consul General had insisted that all associations containing in their names the words “anti-Japanese” must be closed; but that he, the Mayor, could not do this as many of them were not doing anything illegal and that if he were to close them there would be riots and disturbances. He added that he had prepared the way so that he looked for no disturbances to come from the present closing. His position seems perfectly logical and he created a very favorable impression by his statement of the case.
Chinese troops are continuing to erect barricades and are stopping motorcars, et cetera, on outlying roads and I have caused a notice to be published in the newspapers this morning that American residents in exposed districts should be prepared to act immediately and on their own initiative if and when conditions seemed to justify it.”