Office of the Historian

393.115/228: Telegram

The Secretary of State to the Consul General at Shanghai (Gauss)

Washington, March 23, 1938—8 p.m.

226. Your 275, February 18, 4 p.m.; 285, February 19, 4 p.m.;87 and 381, March 12, 11 a.m.

1.
Department desires that you continue in your endeavors to cause the Japanese authorities to take such steps as may be required to bring about a prompt evacuation of, and to remove such restrictions as now prevent owners from returning to American properties, including those mentioned in the third paragraph of your 381. However, for your own information, the Department is of the opinion that under existing conditions only men having urgent and important business should proceed to points in the interior and that all children and, with the exception of doctors and nurses, women should remain in places of safety.
2.
Department also desires that you make appropriate acknowledgment of the petition mentioned in your 381 and assumes that you have already sent to Tokyo the list referred to in the third paragraph of your 381 as well as such other pertinent data as may be available.
3.
Please transmit to Tokyo, and in your consideration of this matter be guided by, the following:

Reference Shanghai’s 275, February 18, 4 p.m.; your February 19, noon, to Shanghai;88 and Shanghai’s 381, March 12, 11 a.m. Department suggests that, with regard to Shanghai’s telegrams under reference and as supplemental to the information on this subject which you have already communicated to the Japanese Government, you again draw to the attention of the Foreign Office with a view to obtaining prompt remedial action (a) the continued occupation by Japanese military of American properties, and (b) the action of the Japanese military in preventing American owners or their representatives from occupying or even inspecting such properties. With reference to point (a) it is suggested that specific mention be made of the American mission property now under Japanese occupation as set forth in the list enclosed with the petition mentioned in Shanghai’s 381. Also, if the American property now under Japanese occupation as set forth in that list includes that mentioned in your 612, December 10, 4 p.m.,89 you may care to indicate, as illustrative of point (b), that although the Japanese Government admitted responsibility for the bombing on November 12 of the American church mission property at Wusih and indicated its readiness to compensate for losses sustained, it would appear that not even at this late date are mission representatives permitted to resume rightful occupation or even to inspect their properties with a view to ascertaining losses sustained.

Hull
  1. Telegram No. 285 not printed.↩
  2. Telegram of February 19, noon, from Tokyo, not printed.↩
  3. Foreign Relations, 1937, vol. iv, p. 397.↩