From Job to Job around the World

by Alfred C. B. Fletcher

The Picture that Caused our Arrest

On the morning after my arrival in Kyoto I was interviewed by the Chief of Police of that city, assisted by an interpreter. During the examination the door opened and outside stood Richardson who had been escorted from Maisuru by an officer. We, however, were not allowed to get together and discuss the matter for fear we would frame up a story. The Chief of Police first finished with me and then called Richardson in for a session.

We were advised by the American secretary of the Y.M.C.A. not to volunteer the statement that we had been in the employ of the United States Navy Department in Hawaii. He said if the Japanese authorities got this information, it would be very difficult for us to prove that we were not spies and in that event the case would have to be handled by the American Embassy. This, he thought, would mean our detention in the country for a couple of months. Fortunately, a question of this nature was not asked us.

Accounts of the affair were printed in all the leading papers of the Far East, including Japan, Korea, China and the Philippines. The Associated Press obtained the news and the dailies of the Pacific Coast in America displayed several columns of distorted accounts. A Honolulu journal considered it of sufficient importance to give it the following full front page headline: "Honolulu Men Languish in a Japanese Jail."

This was not all. The news had found its way to Washington, and our little incident of Maisuru Bay set the wheels of diplomacy of two nations in motion. My brother, reading the Associated Press reports in the San Francisco papers and imagining that we were being subjected to Oriental tortures in a Japanese jail, telegraphed the State Department at Washington. He received the following reply from Mr. Huntington Wilson, Acting Secretary of State at that time, under President Taft: "Department telegraphed Embassy at Tokyo to-day to ascertain facts and endeavour to secure your brother's release." The ambassador in Tokyo got in touch with the situation and replied that Richardson and I were being well treated and that as soon as proved innocent would be liberated. This information was sent to my brother by the State Department.

In the meantime we were battling with the Japanese authorities in Kyoto. We wanted to get back our camera. It was a regulation to confiscate all cameras which had been used in taking illegal pictures. We finally convinced the police that we had no ulterior motives and, after promising to leave Japan at once and giving an itinerary of our route out of the country, we were released. The Kyoto Chief of Police returned the camera, with an impressive speech, and the two of us retired from the courtroom without ceremony, while the numerous officials nearly broke their backs bowing. By a mistake the objectionable picture was left in the camera and we departed with the film of the little Maisuru Bay village in our possession.

Nor did the incident end here. We left immediately for Kobe, and from there took the Inland Sea trip as far south as Miajima. We had supposed that all the nonsense over our arrest had ended and that we were free from the pest of Japanese police. But there was more to come. We spent a day at Miajima, undisturbed by officials, the first time in several days, for the reason that we omitted to put this place on the itinerary. From Miajima we went by train to Chimeneseki and thence across by boat to Fusan in Korea. Being still in Japanese territory we were greeted by two policemen, who had received a cable to watch out for a couple of Americans and keep them moving. After a few hours in Fusan, under competent guards, we went on to Seoul.

We arrived after dark, and as our train was pulling into the station we saw two policemen on the right hand side of the track. We stole a march on these officers of the law by getting out on the left side. We scrambled around the rear of the train and were soon in rickshaws and in a few minutes were registered guests of a Japanese hotel. The proprietor sent the usual records to the police station, but before the officers were detailed on our trail we were up and out at an early hour the next morning. We went to the Y.M.C.A. where we were the guests of two young Koreans.

The police spent the day looking for us and did not locate us until evening, when they found us dining at an American private home. They had evidently been given instructions to watch every movement we made, for during the rest of our week's stay in Seoul we were each accompanied by an officer.