Persona Non Grata

Diplomatic etiquette demands that, prior to naming an Ambassador to a foreign government, that government must be confidentially advised on the choice in order to find out whether he is acceptable, or persona grata, as the proper expression is.

The U. S. Government desires to appoint Jacob Gould Schurman, onetime President of Cornell University and present U. S. Minister to China, as Ambassador to the Island Empire of the East. The Government of Japan failed to find Dr. Schurman persona grata, while Washington declined to withdraw his name.

Discretion veils the reason for Japanese hostility to the proposed successor to the popular Cyrus E. Woods (TIME, June 16), but it might be stated that Pr. Schurman has 'been actively identified with the traditional U. S. Far Eastern Policy of the "Open Door" in China, as laid down by U. S. Secretary of State John Hay a quarter of a century ago and amplified by Secretary Hughes at the Washington Conference in 1921 into an assertion of Chinese integrity and an organized attempt to create a strong central government in China. This policy runs counter to the hopes of Japanese business and to the ambitions of Japanese imperialists, who have preferred a weak China divided into political spheres of influence and wholesale economic concessions.