Panay Pandemonium

Easily the prettiest scene in Washington last week was the annual White House Reception to the diplomatic corps, unofficial opening event of Washington's social season. Not all its prettiness, however, was in polychrome uniforms and effusions of gold braid.

It took place just four days after the grimy little gunboat Panay settled in the mud of the Yangtze River bottom and its greatest ornaments were naturally Ambassadors Saito of Japan and Chengting T. Wang of China. Mr. Saito and his wife arrived first, narrowly missing an embarrassing meeting with Dr. Wang who with his pretty daughters Yoeh. An-fu. and An-hsiu, followed him up the White House steps. In the receiving line as Secretary of State Hull successively faced those dignitaries, he had the opportunity of seeing the fleshly embodiment of one of the strangest diplomatic situations that ever confronted the U. S. State Department.

Incidents such as the sinking last fortnight of the Panay by Japanese aircraft are among the immediate causes of wars. But last week the incident aroused no outcry, no demand in Congress or the press that the U. S. Navy immediately steam across the Pacific to blow Tokyo off the map. What was remarkable was that it produced precisely the opposite effect. While the State Department was engaged in sending the sharpest notes since the World War, reaction of the U. S. generally was alarm, not that Japan would go unpunished, but that the offense might somehow involve the U. S. in war.

The U. S. likes to think of itself as a peace-loving nation. In 125 years the U. S. has fought five major wars and in every one of them except the Civil War it has invaded foreign territory. But Pacifism generally follows a major war as day follows night and the U. S. public has accepted the thesis that it was a sucker in the last war.

So although the U. S. rejected the League of Nations, it successively sponsored limitation of naval armaments, the Kellogg Pact renouncing war, and finally this year's pacifistic Neutrality Act. As the rest of the world appeared progressively to forget the horrors of war, the U. S. appeared progressively to forget all horrors save those of being itself involved in war. In this mood the U. S. may run the risk of taking an action so detrimental to its own interests as to produce later an equally strong reaction in the opposite direction, but it is in a salutary mood of reasonableness in dealing with Japan. And Secretary Hull, counseled on all sides not to act hastily, was in the strange position of a lawyer whose client has been injured, being pressed not to sue for damages.

Notes. When news of the Panay sinking reached Washington fortnight ago Franklin Roosevelt's first official act was to initial a curt memorandum asking Secretary of State Cordell S. Hull to tell the Japanese Ambassador "that the President is deeply shocked and concerned by the news of indiscriminate bombing of American and other non-Chinese vessels on the Yangtze and that he requests that the Emperor be so advised."

The word, "requests" was written in the President's hand in place of "suggests" which appeared in the original draft. The memorandum also asked for a full apology, compensation, and guarantees against a repetition of such attacks. Since Japan's Emperor Hirohito, to Japanese minds, is a divinity who is not of the Government but above it, the knottiest problem posed for trie Japanese was 1) how to bring the matter to his attention or 2) how to avoid doing so without offending the U. S. By week's end Washington was assured that the Roosevelt note had been brought to Hirohito's attention by Premier Fumimaro Konoye.

First apology came from Ambassador Hirosi Saito. When Secretary Hull got back to his office after his call on the President, he found wiry, worried little Mr. Saito waiting to extend "full regrets and apologies." In Tokyo, before U. S. Ambassador Joseph C. Grew could make arrangements to transmit the President's note to the Tokyo Foreign Office, he received a call from Foreign Minister Koki Hirota. Later, in a formal note the Foreign Minister presented his Government's apologies for the incident and its promises to "deal appropriately with those responsible for the attack."

What made last week's diplomatic crisis increasingly grave was that Japan's running fire of apologies were accompanied by a running fire of reports from survivors of the Panay. These made it apparent that not only had the Panay been boarded and identified by the Japanese, but bombed in broad daylight, machine-gunned by four planes, after the bombing, and finally machine-gunned by two Japanese motor boats as she was sinking (see p. 13).

Resolution. Aim of the Neutrality Bill, enacted this year was to keep the U. S. out of situations leading to war by enabling the President to embargo U. S. shipments to belligerents. Since the Kellogg Pact renouncing war, no wars have been declared. To undeclared wars the President can apply the Neutrality Act or not, as he sees fit. The law for which the Panay sinking last week surprisingly supplied momentum in Congress was one which, as an expression of pacifism, made the Neutrality Act look like a speech by Mussolini.

Introduced by Indiana's Representative Louis Leon Ludlow, it sought to amend the U. S. Constitution to make it illegal for Congress to declare war except in the case of armed invasion. According to the Ludlow proposal, at other times "the authority of Congress to declare war shall not become effective until confirmed by a majority of votes cast in a nationwide referendum."

If the amendment became part of the Constitution, as New York Times Pundit Arthur Krock, who called it "dream-born" and a "museum piece," pointed out, any nation could "peacefully" occupy any part of the U. S. without danger of having war declared before a national election had been held.

Representative Ludlow is an amiable

Hoosier who, when he was elected in 1929, became the first member of the House Press Gallery to descend from it to the floor. The Ludlow Anti-War Resolution, introduced three years ago, has been held up ever since by the House Judiciary Committee which had by last week almost forgotten its existence. Of the 218 signatures he needed to get the measure to the floor, Representative Ludlow has had 200 or so for several months. Mr. Ludlow found, in the congressional reaction to the Panay sinking, a chance to get the dozen or sa additional signatures he needed and the bill was scheduled for six hours of debate on January 10.

If there was one thing calculated to console Japan and add confusion to the pandemonium about the Panay in the U. S. State Department last week, serious consideration of the Ludlow Resolution, which would tie the Government's hands in just such a crisis, was that thing. Secretary Hull promptly announced, with as much politeness as he could muster, that he was unable to perceive either "the wisdom or the practicality" of the measure. Rules Committee Chairman John J. O'Connor denounced it as "monstrous." The President--in response to whose wishes the House Military Affairs Committee reported favorably on a bill forbidding unauthorized sketches or photographs of U. S. fortifications and equipment--obviously opposed it. Since the resolution is framed aj a Constitutional Amendment, it would need a two-thirds majority in both houses. Chance that the Ludlow Resolution would ever get much closer to a vote than it was last week was minimized when Majority Leader Sam Rayburn announced that he would exert all his influence to prevent its consideration.

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