"Sam, We Are Here!"

Political forces emanating from the U. S. and Japan were exerted at cross purposes, in China last week, not against each other but none the less in conflict. Both military intimidation and diplomatic pressure were employed by the Imperial Japanese Government against the new Chinese Nationalist State. The reason was that the Nationalists had just served notice that they will not extend or renew the Sino-Japanese commercial treaty of 1896, which grants concessions most advantageous to Japan. In an effort to compel the Chinese Nationalists to reconsider, the Mikado's Government took four drastic steps. First, it refused to take diplomatic cognizance of the Chinese note. Second it stated its determination to consider that the Sino-Japanese treaty continues in force (although the expiration date is two years past) by virtue of an ambiguous automatic renewal clause. Third, it succeeded in breaking off an arrangement whereby the young Dictator of Manchuria, Chang Hsueh-liang, had agreed, last week to place himself in subordinate alliance with the Nationalists. Lastly, Chang was not only compelled by the Japanese to break his agreement, but was detained in his own capital, Mukden, by Japanese troops who clamped a censorship upon all means of communication. At this point the new Nationalist State, not yet recognized by any Great Power, stood badly in need of such moral support as could be given, for example, by the U. S. To a certain blatant U. S. newspaper publisher must go the credit for signing and publishing, last week, a superb, soaring overstatement of what was in the hearts of many U. S. friends of China, as follows: Give China her recognition quickly, sympathetically, heartily. It is only one hundred and fifty years since we were winning our own independence. There may be a time when complications with Japan and all the other envious nations which hate us may make China's friendship valuable. We are a self-reliant people, but the time may come when we would be pleased, if only for the satisfaction of it, to hear four hundred million Chinese voices singing, "Uncle Sam, we are here!"

WILLIAM RANDOLPH HEARST.

Even as the clarion brayed, swift silent messages were flashing across land and under sea from U. S. Secretary of State Frank Billings Kellogg to Chinese Nationalist Foreign Minister C. T. Wang.* Within the astoundingly short space of one day a U. S.-Nationalist trade treaty was negotiated, rushed onto parchment and signed at Nanking, China, by the U. S. Minister, John Van Antwerp MacMurray and Nationalist Finance Minister T. V. Soong (Sung Tsu-wen, Harvard alumnus). Thus the U. S. extended de facto recognition to the Nationalists and signified that recognition de jure will speedily follow. Bitter was the wrath of most Japanese editors; several venomously paraphrased the statement that "hypocritical Uncle Sam has committed toward Japan an almost unfriendly act." The new Sino-American treaty nullifies all previous agreements between the parties respecting Chinese tariffs and mutually guarantees "most favored nation" tariff status. Throughout the week, Imperial Japan continued to mount guard over Manchuria like some watchful bird of prey perched near an enticing fruit. Indeed this metaphor was humorously sketched into a cartoon (see p. 22) by the clever staff artist of Shanghai's North China Herald. Japanese were speechless with wrath when they detected in the sketch an unmistakable resemblance between the bespectacled bird representing Japan and His Imperial Highness Prince Chichibu of Japan, who wears spectacles, often dons a military cap & uniform, and is both heir-apparent and brother of the Sublime Emperor. Appropriate, thought observers, would be a cartoon depicting Frank Billings Kellogg benevolently exclaiming to a venerable Chinaman, "Confucius, we are here!"

* Full Chinese name "Wang Cheng-t'ing." But he, a graduate of Yale College, prefers the initials.