THE CABINET: Panay Pandemonium

Easily the prettiest scene in Washington last week was the annual White House Reception to the diplomatic corps, unofficial opening event of Washington's social season. Not all its prettiness, however, was in polychrome uniforms and effusions of gold braid.

It took place just four days after the grimy little gunboat Panay settled in the mud of the Yangtze River bottom and its greatest ornaments were naturally Ambassadors Saito of Japan and Chengting T. Wang of China. Mr. Saito and his wife arrived first, narrowly missing an embarrassing meeting with Dr. Wang who with his pretty daughters Yoeh. An-fu. and An-hsiu, followed him up the White House steps. In the receiving line as Secretary of State Hull successively faced those dignitaries, he had the opportunity of seeing the fleshly embodiment of one of the strangest diplomatic situations that ever confronted the U. S. State Department.

Incidents such as the sinking last fortnight of the Panay by Japanese aircraft are among the immediate causes of wars. But last week the incident aroused no outcry, no demand in Congress or the press that the U. S. Navy immediately steam across the Pacific to blow Tokyo off the map. What was remarkable was that it produced precisely the opposite effect. While the State Department was engaged in sending the sharpest notes since the World War, reaction of the U. S. generally was alarm, not that Japan would go unpunished, but that the offense might somehow involve the U. S. in war.

The U. S. likes to think of itself as a peace-loving nation. In 125 years the U. S. has fought five major wars and in every one of them except the Civil War it has invaded foreign territory. But Pacifism generally follows a major war as day follows night and the U. S. public has accepted the thesis that it was a sucker in the last war.

So although the U. S. rejected the League of Nations, it successively sponsored limitation of naval armaments, the Kellogg Pact renouncing war, and finally this year's pacifistic Neutrality Act. As the rest of the world appeared progressively to forget the horrors of war, the U. S. appeared progressively to forget all horrors save those of being itself involved in war. In this mood the U. S. may run the risk of taking an action so detrimental to its own interests as to produce later an equally strong reaction in the opposite direction, but it is in a salutary mood of reasonableness in dealing with Japan. And Secretary Hull, counseled on all sides not to act hastily, was in the strange position of a lawyer whose client has been injured, being pressed not to sue for damages.

Notes. When news of the Panay sinking reached Washington fortnight ago Franklin Roosevelt's first official act was to initial a curt memorandum asking Secretary of State Cordell S. Hull to tell the Japanese Ambassador "that the President is deeply shocked and concerned by the news of indiscriminate bombing of American and other non-Chinese vessels on the Yangtze and that he requests that the Emperor be so advised."