MANCHURIA: Run Amuck

Wrathfully one day last week almost every shimbun (newspaper) in the Japanese Empire front-paged a picture of U. S. Secretary of State Henry Lewis Stimson. Scorching captions declared that in Washington he had "insulted the Imperial Japanese Army by charging, with ignorant presumption, that it has run amuck."

Excited Japanese devoured the captions, cursed Statesman Stimson by the million, spat by the thousand upon his inoffensive likeness. Even at the Japanese Foreign Office, where velvet politeness is an iron rule, Press Spokesman Shiratori Toshio snapped: "If a man in Mr. Stimson's position loses his head at such a critical moment in the affairs of Japan, the consequences would be very grave indeed. . . . Mr. Stimson says the Japanese Army in Manchuria 'ran amuck.' This is considered a very bold statement indeed."

In Washington that cautious and conservative old Manhattan lawyer, Statesman Stimson, had of course made no such bold statement. To one of his press conferences had come a group of correspondents, vaguely hopeful that the State Department's sphinx might say something and permit quotation. What did Mr. Stimson think, they asked, of reports that the Japanese Army had just launched a major offensive against Chinchow, the last Manchurian stronghold still in Chinese hands? Were the League of Nations and

President Hoover going to let Japan snatch the whole of Manchuria? Had the Secretary of State anything to say?

Mr. Stimson had nothing to say for quotation. But speaking informally he let quite a cat out of his diplomatic bag. He revealed the drift of an exchange of notes with the Imperial Government which he had asked the Japanese to keep secret and which they had kept secret. The striking part of Mr. Stimson's revelation was that he had received assurances not only from Japanese Foreign Minister Baron Shidehara but also through him further assurances from Japanese War Minister General Jiro Minanmi and from the Chief of the Japanese General Staff. These assurances were such, declared Mr. Stimson, that he could not "understand" reports of the Japanese advance against

Chinchow. Next day the Secretary of State said that by "understood" he meant "credit" and further informed correspondents that he meant "credit" in the sense of "believe." Thus he originally meant to say that he could not "believe" reports of General Honjo's offensive against Chinchow, but what he did say was that he could not "understand" those reports in view of the assurances he had received.

Not permitted to quote Mr. Stimson's original words, each correspondent had had to make what he could of them. The Associated Pressman came to the conclusion that, since Mr. Stimson could not "understand" the advance of the Japanese Army contrary to so many assurances, State Department officials doubtless credited widespread reports of a feud between the peaceably inclined Japanese civil Cabinet and pugnacious independent Japanese militarists like General Honjo. "Officials were given the impression," wired the A. P. in summarizing Mr. Stimson's press conference, "that the Military party, which is not under complete control of the civil Government, had simply run amuck."