Panay Repercussions

In 1928, 15 nations signed the Kellogg-Briand pact, renouncing war as a means of settling international disputes. Next year, Frank Billings Kellogg was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for sponsoring it. Last week, in St. Paul, Statesman Kellogg, 81, died of pneumonia (see p. 41). His death and that of onetime Secretary of War Newton D. Baker coincided ironically with his country's gravest international crisis since 1917, a crisis caused by the war between China and Japan upon which the only discernible influence of the Kellogg Pact was the fact that both sides had politely refrained from declaring it.

Telegrams. While Franklin Roosevelt waited in vain for any answer from divine Emperor Hirohito covering the Japanese sinking of the Panay, he received a telegram from Alf Landon. A year ago, Alf Landon promised the President support in matters of international policy. Last week, Mr. Landon took advantage of the Panay sinking to reiterate his pledge:

". . . I want to renew my pledge, especially in view of the fact that so many members of Congress, of both parties, seem to have forgotten the basic principle of American politics and . . . create the impression on foreign nations that they do not trust your administration of foreign affairs. They would hamstring your conduct of extremely delicate foreign situations. . . ."

The President gratefully answered:

"Throughout our long history we Americans have rejected every suggestion that ultimate security can be assured by closing our eyes to the fact that whether we like it or not we are a part of a large world of other nations and peoples.

"As such we owe some measure of cooperation and even leadership in maintaining standards of conduct helpful to the ultimate goal of general peace."

Stimson on Ludlow. Alf Landon's complaint against Congress was due to the Ludlow Resolution (TIME, Dec. 27), a proposed amendment to the Constitution providing for declaration of war by national referendum rather than act of Congress. The Ludlow Resolution has almost no chance of passage anyway, but Henry L. Stimson, who succeeded Frank Kellogg as Secretary of State, came to aid his own embarrassed successor, Cordell Hull. Policies of the U. S. State Department change less with changing administrations than those of any other department. Secretary Stimson and Secretary Hull see almost eye to eye on many matters and that they agreed on the Ludlow Resolution was hardly surprising.

Following Secretary Hull's dignified official belittlement of that measure last fortnight, Mr. Stimson wrote a letter to the New York Times. In a masterly 4,000-word document, Statesman Stimson tore the Resolution to pieces as a device that would not only dangerously divide U. S. sentiment if there were a war but also would defeat its own purposes by so hobbling U. S. diplomacy that situations like the Panay bombing would be far more likely to lead to war than they are at present, Mr. Stimson's conclusion: "No more effective engine for the disruption of national unity on the threshold of a national crisis could ingeniously have been devised."

Hull, Hirota, Hopes. What caused the Panay incident to retain its high rating as an international crisis was the conspicuous delay of a reply to the State Department's demand for a formal apology, promise of indemnity and "satisfactory guarantees" that the episode would not be repeated. At week's end the formal apology finally arrived--just in time to be published in the U. S. simultaneously with a complete report of the bombing by the Panay's Lieutenant Commander J. J. Hughes and the findings of a naval court of inquiry which had been sifting eyewitness accounts of the affair at Shanghai.

Signed by Japanese Foreign Minister Koki Hirota, the Japanese apology added little to previous unofficial expressions of regret tendered just after the delivery of the first note from the U. S. For indemnities it referred Secretary Hull to the earlier note in which restitution had been freely promised. As its best guarantee that the "mistake" would not be repeated, Japan pointed out that "the recall of the Commander of the flying force [Teizo Mitsunami] has a significance of special importance," which, it was Minister Hirota's "fervent hope," would be appreciated by the U. S.

In neither Commander Hughes's report nor that of the naval court--both of which called attention to the unmistakable deliberateness of the attack--was there any indication that the bombing of the Panay was a mistake of the sort which Minister Hirota seemed to imply. Nonetheless, since the Japanese apology fulfilled all the demands made by the U. S., Secretary Hull quickly accepted it, merely calling attention to this difference of opinion in his reply. The State Department's note presumably closed the incident but made it apparent that a repetition might be much less easy to explain away. Secretary Hull also adroitly reminded Japan that, for its account of the "origins, causes and circumstances of the incident," the U. S. Government "relies on the report of findings of the court of enquiry of the United States Navy."

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