Catch-Penny News

The Japanese press devoted less space to events in China last week than to the minutes of the Imperial Diet. The British press of London and Toronto was calm and factual. But the newspapers of the U. S. grossly sensationalized the news. To catch the pennies that buy papers, cartoonists for the Chicago Tribune and many another great daily splashed out Chinamen in pigtails* being egged on to clash with U. S. marines by horrifically bearded Bolsheviki. Still more blatant were U. S. headlines. One example:

WORLD REVOLUTION CALLED AT SHANGHAI*

Lurid paraphrases of this headline were carried by scores of newspapers above a lead which gave in indirect discourse a proclamation by General Pai Tsung-hsi, the Nationalist commander in immediate control of Shanghai. His actual words were, in part: "The Chinese people must not insult the foreigners or destroy their property. . . The people must distinguish between combatting foreign imperialism and attacking foreigners. . . . But we Chinese now have awakened and Shanghai, the greatest commercial centre in the Far East, will become not only a strong base for Chinese nationalism but for world revolution."

Thus what amounted to a vague expression of hope as to the course of future events, was transformed by headliners into a proclamation of immediate world revolution. Headline to the contrary, one and not "more Yanks"2 were killed: Headlines to the contrary, no white women were "outraged"3 in the sense of an assault on their honor.

Meanwhile, in London, Foreign Minister Sir Austen Chamberlain barely deigned an allusion to the phrase "world revolution" while assuring the House of Commons that Britons were adequately protected in Shanghai. When a certain newsgatherer popped a question about "world revolution" at U. S. Secretary of State Kellogg, in Washington, it was reported that he "seemed annoyed, but not more nervous than usual." Finally, the Federal Council of Churches, most heeded mouthpiece of U. S. Protestantism expressed "sympathy for the Chinese people."

*It is not the oldtime pigtailed Chinese who is in revolt against the foreigner, but instead modern, pigtailless, Chinese soldiers and intellectuals. 1New York Herald Tribune. 25t. Paul Pioneer Press. 3Dayton Daily News,