711.00 Pres. Speech, Oct. 5, 1937/11: Telegram
The Ambassador in Japan (Grew) to the Secretary of State
[Received October 7—9:20 a.m.]
456. Department’s 253, October 6, 6 p.m.97
1. The two principal Japanese papers this morning editorially discussed the President’s address at Chicago.
- (a)
- The Asahi referring to the traditional partiality of the American people to the under dog states that it is natural that American sympathy should be largely with China but it objects to the President’s assuming without examination that the complaints of the party (China) which initiated the conflict are necessarily true. Although it shares the ideals of the President with regard to world peace it declares that the facts upon which the President rests his statements need revision. The editorial concludes with the statement that the President’s address by stimulating the hopes of the weakening Chinese Army will only vainly protract the hostilities; and that if the United States intends to express its views with regard to the Far East only by maintaining an attitude of neutrality will it qualify itself to be heard on that subject.
- (b)
- The Nichi Nichi states that it is reluctant to compare the President with the Archbishop of Canterbury who has taken a leading part in fostering a movement prejudicial to good international relations. The attitude of the Roosevelt Administration toward Far Eastern problems has thus far been fair and just but the paper considers the address at Chicago to have been imprudent and lacking in the keen political insight which Mr. Roosevelt usually shows. It regrets that the President is unable to realize that the conflict was brought about by the policy of the Chinese Government of hostility toward Japan as indicated by refusal to cooperate in the economic field with Japan and by threatening the lives and property of Japanese nationals in China.
2. The Department’s announcement of October 698 with regard to violation by Japan of the Nine Power Treaty and Kellogg Pact was put this morning by the newspapers in extras and special editions. The only reaction in official Japanese circles thus far described in the press is attributed to the Foreign Office and is as follows:
The Japanese Government has already made it clear that special consideration must be given to the application to the Far East of the principles set forth in Secretary of State Hull’s recent declaration. It betrays an actual lack of knowledge to propose the application to the Far East of the Nine Power Treaty which was concluded many years ago, and of the Kellogg Pact. Conditions having changed these two treaties cannot be applied as a basis for regulating relations between Japan and China.
3. As indicating one line which may be followed by the press in discussing the Department’s statement it was privately stated at the Foreign Office this morning that as the American Government has in effect declared that Japan has resorted to war it will be interesting to observe whether the American Government will continue to take the view in relation to the Neutrality Act that a state of war does not exist in the Far East.
- See footnote 95, p. 584.↩
- See telegram No. 10, October 6, 6 p.m., to the Minister in Switzerland, vol. iv, p. 62.↩