Practicing History_ Selected Essays - Barbara W. Tuchman [52]
Although well concealed behind an aggressive front, the sense of inequality is always present to make Japan suspect a slight or threat in every act of her neighbors. She is, for instance, extremely sensitive to any possible slur on her position as a major power. With that in mind one realizes that her demand for naval parity is due less to strategical reasons than to a desire to have her status as a major power vindicated before the whole world.
Where her sensitivity is even more acute is in the realm of racial prejudice. Apropos of anti-Japanese activities in the United States, a Tokyo newspaper says: “A contributing factor to this agitation is racial. We, who take pride in the fact that we are one of the three greatest nations in the world, and comparable in any way with any foreign country, cannot tolerate the slight put upon us by the Americans.”7
Although Japan’s racial sensitivity has undoubtedly received provocation from without, especially from the United States, her quickness to see a threat in every act of her fellow nations is born of an inherent feeling of insecurity. This in turn generates a persecution complex which finds expression in Japan’s shrill cries of “Danger!” each time one of her neighbors makes a move. For example, American naval maneuvers in the western Pacific last summer were denounced as being actuated by the desire “to dominate over”8 Japan, and an announcement of the proposed trans-Pacific air route was described as “exposing to the whole world the United States’ aggressive plans against the Far East.”9 And that perennial irritant, the naval ratio system, calls forth this characteristic comment: “It passes the understanding of the Japanese that the equality proposal, so fair and just, should have failed to find the support of Great Britain and the United States, except on the theory that the Anglo-Saxon races are bent on arresting the advance of the Yamato race.”10
In these conditions the relations between Japan and the West will continue to present most difficult problems of diplomacy.
Foreign Affairs, April 1936.
1 From the Jiji, July 10, 1935. (This and subsequent quotations are taken from the Japan Advertiser’s daily translations of editorials appearing in the vernacular press. The sources given, however, refer to the Japanese paper in which the particular passage was originally printed.)
2 Major-General Itagaki, Assistant Chief of Staff of the Kwantung Army, quoted by Rengo News Agency in the Japan Advertiser, April 24, 1935.
3 Miyako, April 20, 1935.
4 Gaiko Jiho (Revue Diplomatique), August 1935.
5 Jiji, January 5, 1935.
6 Translation of the pamphlet printed by the Japan Advertiser, May 28, 1935.
7 Miyako, February 19, 1935.
8 Ibid., May 1, 1935.
9 Nichi Nichi, April 26, 1935.
10 Kokumin Domei, February 13, 1935.
Campaign Train
“Here comes the boss now,” said one of the newspapermen indifferently. It was dark on the station platform, with only a few lights shining through the rain. Reporters and photographers who were going along on the campaign tour stood around in slickers, talking in small groups. The President climbed on board in silence. There were no greetings; no one said anything. Only a Secret Service man standing on the rear platform, every muscle alert, his head turning this way and that, his eyes darting over the groups of men below as if to ward off any hostility, gave one a sense of excitement.
Our first stop the next morning was Thomas, a little mining town in West Virginia. Because of the rain none of us knew whether the President would take the drive through the hills that had been