Flash-lights from the Seven Seas

by William L. Stidger

I said to him "Are things better or worse in Korea?"

His reply was, "Worse than they have ever been; generally speaking!" I have no intention and no desire to further augment ill feeling between America and Japan. In fact I do not fear anything like war in that direction; but I do have an intense feeling of responsibility about telling my readers the plain and simple truth that the whole Far Eastern world hates Japan.

If that thought itself can get into the mind of America, this country will understand, at least, that there is some fault that lies back in the Japanese military policy and character itself. It hardly seems possible, with ten races and five different countries hating Japan; that Japan herself is not mostly to blame. When a matter of hatred is so unanimous among all races in that part of the world, it is likely that the fault lies with the race and nation which has the hatred of so many types of people focused on its actions.

While I was in Java some high dignitaries in the Japanese Navy arrived in Batavia. The Chinese Coolies who live in Batavia absolutely refused to carry any Japanese officers or sailors in their Rickshas. It was a striking indictment of the Japanese nation.

In Singapore the distrust and hatred of the Japanese is unanimous. In the Philippines it is the same. In Hongkong you see few Japanese. They are not wanted and they are not trusted. In Shanghai, and Peking it is the same. The Student Movement, one of the most powerful weapons that has ever arisen in any nation in the world, has focused the Chinese sentiment against selfish Japanese aggression in China.

The Japanese officials laughed at the Student Boycott of Japanese goods when it first started. But in a year they were trembling in the face of that boycott. I was in Tientsin, and Peking during the days of the Student Street Demonstrations. They were like American demonstrations.

Keen, alert, intelligent Chinese boys addressed the crowds admonishing them not to buy Japanese goods in Chinese shops. The pressure became so strong that all Chinese merchants from the lowest shopkeeper up to the owner of the great chain stores, like our Woolworth institutions, put away Japanese-made goods and refused to sell them.

I took dinner in Shanghai with one of the foremost merchant princes of China and said, "Are you selling any Japanese-made goods?"

"I certainly am not. I am not powerful enough with all my millions of money and all of my chain of stores to take such a chance as that. I have put all of my Japanese goods in the cellar."

The Boycott against Japanese goods in China became so powerful that in Tientsin, while I was there, the Japanese Consul complained bitterly to the Governor of the Province and the Governor who was said to be under the influence of Japanese money, arrested a lot of students. There was one of the most determined and terrible riots that I have ever seen. It was war. It was not like any mild American riot. It was war to the death. Several students were killed and finally the pressure was so strong that even this Japanese Agent was compelled to release the imprisoned students. I shall quote from an editorial that I was asked to write for the Peking Leader during my stay in China: