Japanese Justice

James Russel Young comes of a good newspaper family. Cousin and private secretary to Edward Wyllis Scripps, he was with Scripps on his yacht Ohio, off the coast of Liberia, when the late, great founder of United Press and the Scripps-Howard Newspaper Alliance died in 1926. He is also a nephew of Paul Patterson, president of the Baltimore Sun.

When Scripps died, Hearst's International News Service hired Jimmy Young, sent him to Japan at 23 to run the Tokyo bureau. Curly-haired, stocky Newsman Young had a healthy zest for his job, a healthy sense of humor.

Once the Japanese Army, disgusted with its own trumpeting, sent a hundred of its worst buglers to practice at 6 a.m. in a park under Jimmy's window. Jimmy wrote to the Minister of War: would the Imperial trumpet corps please practice elsewhere? Next day a young lieutenant called on Jimmy, clicked his heels, demanded the letter be withdrawn. When Jimmy refused, he was told to pack his bags, move from his swank apartment.

Two months ago Jimmy took a swing around China, looked at Japan's undeclared war, cabled six stories from Hong Kong. Again the Japanese were not amused. No sooner was Jimmy back in Tokyo than a squad of policemen descended on him (TIME, Feb. 5), ransacked his hotel suite, threw him into a cell in Sugamo prison for "spreading fabrications and false rumors" in violation of the Army criminal code.

There Jimmy stayed for seven weeks, awaiting trial. Hauled before District Judge Sanehira Hotta, Reporter Young last week heard his sentence: six months in jail and full costs of his trial. Because Jimmy Young is a U. S. citizen, Japanese justice suspended his term in prison, put him, on probation for three years. Then back he went to Sugamo prison, not to be released until this week, then perhaps deported.

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