NO WAR WITH JAPAN
Barnes, Harry Elmer
No War With Japan By HARRY ELMER BARNES ONE OF THE momentous issues before us today is whether we have interests in the Far East—in the Philippines, China, the Dutch East Indies, Japan, or...
...t)ur Interests In The Pacific We may now turn our attention to the interests of he United States in the Far East which many allege ;o be sufficient to justify war in their behalf...
...Real "dictatorship bills" would then be passed...
...We should understand that it will be no pleasant little lark —no Summer excursion to the Orient subsidized by (Uncle Sam...
...National Safety Begins At Home Some of our military and naval'experts who now look very light-heartedly upon a war with Japan and predict an easy victory for the United States wrote quite differently before they became engulfed in war hysteria...
...Liberals, radicals, and conscientious objectors would be'herded into concentration camps and federal jails...
...Race hatred could be invoked against "yellow devtls" in Japan, while the Chinese would be bleached vhite overnight by wartime psychology...
...We would lose not only the large sums of money already expended in fortifying the Philippines but also the men and ships that would be ruthlessly sacrificed in their futile defense...
...It is a sordid instrument of western imperialism in the Far East...
...Even though we were to accept the most sentimental version of the Open Door doctrine, it could scarcely provide adequate justification for feeding the flower of American youth to the sharks of the Pacific, in order to bolster the disintegrating British Empire...
...They would no longer have to invent lies...
...In other words, can anything we might gain out of a war with Japan in any way equal what it would cost us to defeat the Japanese...
...Let us now examine the character of our Far Eastern interests which are held to justify war in their defense...
...Well, it so happens that the East Indies are now held, not by the United States, but by foreign countries, Britain and Holland...
...We would then be taxing even toothpicks and hair ribbons...
...There is where Great Britain and her Allies want us to fight, and if |we do go to war it will be at the bidding of Britain, and not because of any threat to the integrity and safety of our own country...
...But with every step we take to curtail Japanese supplies, the more certain we are to force Japan into some desperate stroke, which will either involve us in war or turn over the Far East to collusion between Japan and Russia...
...jWe Would Fight At Britain's Bidding There is every likelihood that if the United States enters the second World War such action will take the form of a naval conflict with Japan...
...Here he marshalled the evidence to show that it would be very difficult for either the United States or Japan to win a clean-cut victory arid made it clear that, though we could probably triumph in the end, such a victory could be achieved only at a frightful cost of men and money...
...I would agree, if we could be sure that such aid would actually stop, short of war...
...And it is extremely probable that this wartime regimentation would hold over into peacetime for a generation or more...
...To add...
...Neither ideals nor material interests, alone or in combination, could justify such a war...
...George Fielding Eliot, who is now urging war on Japan and.predicting a speedy victory at slight cost to this country...
...Our trade with China, in 1938, amounted to about $80,000,000, with our imports from China greatly exceeding our exports to China, Our investments in China today have shrunk to less than $150,000,000, not enough to run WPA for two months...
...We would immediately be subjected to a degree of political, legal, and economic regimentation which would make the New Deal of Blue Eagle days look like an anarchist's picnic...
...Some will say that all this may be true, but nevertheless we should give China every possible aid short of War...
...Now let us look at the logic of making war upon Japan to protect our trade and investments in China...
...Hence, we cannot intelligently weigh the issues involved in this crisis unless we place over against any or all of our interests in the Far East the total cost, physical, political, economic, and moral, of waging a war with the Japanese Empire...
...A good example is the very able authority, Maj...
...We would not get off as lightly under Franklin D. Roosevelt, Frank Knox, and "Wild Bill" Donovan as we did under Woodrow Wilson and the gentle Newton D. Baker...
...And we would have no opportunity to "belly-ache" or sputter about our troubles, if we hoped to escape the firing-squad or the rockpiles...
...When a Far Eastern war for us is viewed against the background of the disasters which would befall our country on the domestic front, such venture must be branded as nothing short of sheer national idiocy...
...and Dutch Empires in the Far East, well and good, but we should realize what such an adventure would involve...
...But the British, with Sir John Simon as Foreign Secretary, let us down in contemptible fashion, double-crossed us, and compelled us to beat the most ignominious diplomatic retreat in our whole history...
...On top of all this we would have to spend at least a hundred billion dollars to lick Japan...
...Only characteristic contempt for American intelligence and logic can explain the current English insistence that Uncle Sam should now bail out the British and the other treaty-breakers by stopping Japan with our Navy...
...Eliot wrote a masterly article for The American Mercury on "The Impossible War With Japan...
...But, back in September, 1938, Maj...
...If we wish a naval base from which to attack Japan, the Aleutian Islands far surpass the Philippines from every standpoint...
...Further than this we cannot safely go...
...If this was true in 1938 it is equally true in 1941, and it is not unfair to conjecture that the Major's logic was less colored by emotion three years ago than it is today...
...Dorothy Thompson would then read real "dictatorship bills" and like them...
...The contemptible Japanese atrocities in conquered nina would delight our war propagandists no end...
...In the second place, whatever its origin, the Open Door notion is in no sense an ideal...
...The great task for Americans is to save America...
...They are: (1) ur alleged political and moral obligation to our "little brown brothers" in the Philippines...
...We have already started them on their way to legal independence...
...Nothing would please me better than to see Chinese integrity restored and defended, but neither morality, international law, nor national interest could justify the United States in assuming the burden of a single-handed enforcement of the Nine Power Treaty of February, 1922...
...Nothing Short Of Sheer Idiocy A stock argument of interventionists is that we cannot safely allow the tin, rubber and other valuable natural resources of the East Indies to fall into the hands of a foreign country like Japan...
...AH are to have the opportunity to steal from China on equal terms...
...4) our technical treaty obligation to defend and restore the integrity of China...
...It was readily accepted, however, by John Hay in September, 1899...
...It should not be forgotten that in January, 1932, we offered to cooperate with Great Britain in enforcing this treaty and stopping Japan cold in her tracks...
...Is there any evidence whatever that Japan would be less eager to sell the raw materials of the East Indies to us than are Britain and Holland...
...But it is doubtful if we should ever have, or seek to defend, a major naval base beyond Pearl Harbor in the Hawaiian Islands...
...Our investments in Japan are approximately $450,000,000, over three times what we have invested in China...
...2) the supposed strategic advantages of a naval and military base in the Philippines...
...But a naval war in the Far East would be something new and different...
...No Pleasant Little Lark After such a war, our securities, even government securities, would be worth little or nothing...
...5) the protection of our material interests in China, such as our investments and trade, and (6) preventing Japan from seizing the resources of the East Indies...
...We should, of course, do all in our power to give every possible moral aid to the forces of decency in the Far East, in whatever country they may express themselves...
...Indeed, there would be more pressure on Japan to market these materials than exists with respect to the countries that now hold the Indies...
...The effect of a long and expensive war on the United States would be appalling...
...In the meantime, the increasing burden of taxation would so mount as to make our present income and other taxes seem just a little friendly hatpassing on the part of the government...
...Liberal journalism would disappear over night...
...Our democracy and civil liberties would evaporate over night...
...Naval experts of the highest authority have agreed that it would be impossible for us to defend the Philippines successfully against a Japanese attack...
...Such a venture would leave us a hundred billion dollars in the red...
...3) our ostensible idealistic obligation to maintain the Open Door in China...
...another hundred billion dollars to our present national debt, now in excess of fifty billion dollars, would mean inflation or repudiation...
...No War With Japan By HARRY ELMER BARNES ONE OF THE momentous issues before us today is whether we have interests in the Far East—in the Philippines, China, the Dutch East Indies, Japan, or Manchuria, any or all—sufficient to justify us in going to war in behalf of these interests...
...American Jews would be at the mercy of profiteering war-mongers and anti-Semites...
...Our China Trade Is Negligible Let us now turn our attention to our material interests in China...
...The moment we declare war upon Japan for that purpose, we would forfeit a potential trade with Japan over three times the size of our trade with China, and investments over threefold greater than those we have in China...
...It would provide lus with many new and powerful slogans for wartime propaganda...
...It is a question of whether these interests are greater than our national interest in keeping the peace in this country and enjoying the unique and extensive blessings thereof...
...It is not merely a matter of whether we have interests, indeed, very important interests in the Far East...
...Indeed, it is likely that we would go over to a rubber-stamp journalism, under tight state control, like the situation which now prevails in Germany, Italy, and Russia...
...Hay being the most ardent American Anglomaniac prior to the days of Walter Hines Page...
...Not even Ivar Kruger in his most delirious moments of swindle-mongering ever envisaged anything as fantastic as our fighting Japan to protect our Chinese interests and investments...
...We have already spent hundreds of millions of dollars to help our little brown brothers in the Philippines, but they have been seeking to escape from Uncle Sam's benevolence ever since 1900...
...A.holy war ould also be launched against the pagan Japanese...
...For this country to enter war over Far Eastern issues would be the supreme folly of all American experience in foreign affairs...
...It would be a great national adventure...
...If anybody thinks it would be worth all this, and more, to bail out the British, French...
...Our trade with Japan, in 1938, amounted to $365,-000,000, more than four times our Chinese trade, with our exports to Japan being almost twice as great as our imports from that country...
...And the chances are that a restored China would soon, throw us out and confiscate our paltry Chinese investments forthwith...
...Hardly a leading columnist of our day would survive...
...It is probably true that our national safety, like our charity, should begin at home...
...Britain and her Allies know that it would be very difficult ever again to get ¦American doughboys into the trenches in Europe to ¦batter out their brains against the west wall of the fSiegfried Line...
...In essence, it means merely the declaration of open season on China for all imperialistic thieves...
...Open Door Is Open Season On China Upon examination, the Open Door policy in the Far East is revealed to have been originally an English proposition...
...They could jlevote all their ingenuity and energy to the exposi-ion and dissemination of sordid truth...
...It would appeal particularly to President ¦Roosevelt and many of his admirals...
...We may |ist these briefly but comprehensively...
Vol. 5 • December 1941 • No. 49
