Heaven-Decreed War

Famed Japanese publicists Teisuka Akiyama and Seijiro Kawashima detonated into lurid phrase again last week, called upon Japan to declare war on the U. S., rehashed with venom the celebrated "Hanihara incident."/- (TIME, April 28, 1924.)

Publicist Akiyama, "the Colonel House of Japan," declared in a magazine article: "Hanihara's 'grave consequences' note was a warning from Heaven which the gods of Nippon conveyed through the pen of a clumsy diplomat!"

Publicist Kawashima thundered: "Like a devil, the U. S. is restraining Japan's desire for 'open doors' to America, Australia, and Africa. The U. S. not only shuts us out but encourages other nations to exclude us. Japan no longer can stand such injustice! The Japanese-U. S. war has been decreed by Heaven. We must kick the U. S.--a mortifying influence--out of the way."

Roused by these wrathy words, the Japanese learned with satisfaction last week that Masanao Hanihara is likely soon to succeed Kentaro Ochiai as Japanese Ambassador to Italy. There his smile, his wit, his vigor may perhaps charm Il Duce. Concurrently Premier Wakatsuki reshuffled his Cabinet, appointed the following politicians to the offices named: Viscount K. Inouye, Railroads; C. Machida, Agriculture; M. Hamaguchi, Home Affairs.

Japanese editors violently disagreed as to whether these new appointments will achieve their purpose--to strengthen the unstable government coalition.

/-Appointed Ambassador to the U. S. (TIME, March 3, 1923), Masanao Hanihara, moonfaced, perpetually smiling, became irksome to Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes, by championing with great persistence the rights of Nippon. While the Immigration Bill was pending before the Senate (TIME, April 28, 1924, CONGRESS), Ambassador Hanihara, an experienced diplomat, but goaded to extremities by the Senate's anti-Japanese predilections, staked all upon a "diplomatic threat" to the Secretary of State that "grave consequences" might follow the enactment of the Japanese exclusion clause of the bill. The Senate, reacting violently and negatively to the Hanihara note, promptly rushed through the present immigration legislation debarring all Japanese, except ministers, artists, students, their wives, their children.

Having precipitated the very situation which he sought to check, Ambassador Hanihara withdrew to Japan (TIME, July 21, 1924).