I was passing the Japanese Embassy in Peiping.
At the entrance stood one lone Japanese soldier,
with fixed gun. The gate opened and Chinese work-
ers, apparently leaving work for the day, passed
from the Embassy grounds into the street. They
walked single-file, and as they passed this Japanese
soldier, they halted, removed their hats, and bowed
to the earth. The Japanese soldier stared before him
and appeared not even to notice them. A whole line
of some twenty Chinese workers passed, bowing to
the earth, hats in hand.
It seemed to me that this was worse than death.
Chinese workers, once organized,
strong and proud,
have been beaten down by the Chinese ruling class
until they are today like worms before a single J ap-
anese. Their dignity as men is gone.
"Rather death than this
I"
I protest to others.
"They must think of their families," people reply.
"Families-why
should Chinese families live to
exist in slavery?"
"If they refuse to bow, that Japanese would stick
his bayonet through them."
"Good-rather
that, than this degradation."
"What
do you expect of the Chinese common
people? For generations their own rulers have treat-
ed them exactly as the Japanese treat them today.
They have robbed them, looted them, beaten them,
killed them, used them as nothing but creatures to
make money for them. Now, suddenly, you expect
these Chinese to act like men before a foreign in-
vasion."
Yet the Chinese people do struggle, are not slaves.
Else why does the Nanking Government pass Special
Emergency Laws against
the national
liberation
movement, wage war on the Red Army, and form an
Anti-Red Pact with the Japanese invaders? Why
does the Japanese Army hesitate to occupy all
China? Not from fear of the Chinese ruling class-
but from fear of the Chinese people under the in-
fluence of the Communists.
That and that alone
holds them back. But the Japanese have no fear of
the Chinese rulers today. Every time the Japanese
ambass~ d0r. or S0i11e petty Japanese official calls
on the Nanking Minister of Foreign Affairs, this
latter gentleman gets di aorrhea.
The Japanese have killed another of their own
countrymen in China. This is the third such murder
in recent months and two of them have been i~
Shanghai.
The men killed are all insignificant,
un-
important men. The murderers are said by the J ap-
anese to be Chinese, yet no Chinese has been captur-
ed.
Evervone knows the Japanese order these killings,
that they may use them to exert new pressure on
the Nanking Government.
Perhaps to get new secret
agreements signed. Perhaps to force the withdrawal
of Chinese troops from Hopei
Province in the
North, to get the "right" to station troops in Shan-
tung Province and to take over that Province, to get
new economic concessions, or to take over Shanghai.
Even now the Japanese use these killings to police
the International
Settlement of Shanghai. Squads of
Japanese marines, armed to the teeth, patrol Shan-
ghai streets where no Japanese live. The British
Consul-General
of Shanghai aids them in every way.
The Germans aid them. The other foreigners bow
to them and remark fatalistically that soon the Jap-
anese will take over and run the International
Settle-
ment. And with this, they will control the wealth
of the Yangtze Valley, and the source of income of
the Nanking Government
which is and always has
been but the tail to this citadel of Far Eastern
colonial reaction.
China is sinking-sinking not only physically, but
morally,
spiritually.
Every Chinese under the in-
fluence of the Nanking Government
is terrified by
the Japanese,
degraded,
servile.
Every Chinese
under the influence of the Communists,
of the Red
Army, is filled with contempt and bitter hatred for
Nanking and Japan and all their ways.
Happy Birthday
JOSEPH BRIDGES
ALBERT woke up, stretched, yawned and looked at
the clock. It was
10
:30.
After a minute he put on
his bathrobe and went into the kitchen.
His mother wa:s peeling potatoes.
"Good morn-
ing," she said smiling. He said, "Good morning,"
set the bread in the toaster,
and fixed the orange
juice.
"Happy birthday," his mother said.
Albert put coffee into the percolator.
"What?"
He grinned. "Oh yes. Thanks."
"My little boy is twenty-two." She patted him on
the back. "A great big man."
"That's right."
"I haven't been able to get you anything, but I'm
baking a cake for dinner and I'll give you a little
check next week."
"It doesn't make any difference," Albert replied
absently. Sitting in the sunlight, he ate his breakfast
and read the
Literary Digest.
He felt weak and
stuffy: he had slept too long. Pouring a second cup
of pale coffee, he remarked,
"The
Digest
is getting
punk. No pep."
"I don't like it much either," his mother answered.
"But Uncle Ralph gave us the subscription and it
keeps coming." He turned the page and read "The
Lexicographer's
Easy Chair".
"Sometimes the poe-
try page is good," she added.
Albert lighted a cigarette. He burned his hand on
the toaster,
and yanked the cord out. He threw the
OCTOBER,
1936
