Honorable Amakasu

In the chaotic days following the great Japanese earthquake of 1923 a young police captain, Masahiko Amakasu, held in his custody a Socialist leader, Sakai Osugi. Amakasu was a member of a group of young Japanese firebrands who vehemently denounced internationalism, who were then seriously beginning a successful struggle to make the army master of the Japanese Government. In cold blood, with his own hands, Captain Amakasu strangled his internationally-minded prisoner. He deputed to a subordinate the less important job of garroting Osugi's wife and 10-year-old son.

Brought to trial, Captain Amakasu had a good defense: he had gained nothing by Osugi's death; his was a purely patriotic murder. He was given only seven years and he was out in a little more than two. When the Japanese Army entered Manchuria and set up the so-called state of Manchukuo, Amakasu went over to help occupy, was presently active in Manchukuo's "General Affairs Bureau." Naturally he was appointed vice-chairman of a Manchukuoan Good Will and Economic Mission of 26 members which recently set out for a tour of Italy, the Vatican City, Germany, Rightist Spain, El Salvador, nations which pretend there is such an independent State as Manchukuo.

To go to such widely separated nations the good-willers necessarily had to pass through other countries, including England and the U. S. To 25 Manchukuoan glad-handers, British and U. S. consular authorities last week had readily granted visas. But neither Britain nor the U. S. would grant the honorable Mr. Amakasu even a transit visa. To Britain a murderer is still an "undesirable alien." to the U. S. a murderer is still guilty of "moral turpitude," to both a murderer is a murderer.

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