THE HANGING OF THE TIGER
Mayer, Milton
The Hanging Of The Tiger By MILTON MAYER IMET a lady on the suburban trainjast Friday, and, after we had exchanged the greetings of the holy season, I asked her if she thought Yamashita should be...
...Why," she said, "I don't know...
...MacArthur intervenes, there will be only the outward show of law In Tokyo, where my old friend Joe Keenan, MacArthur's special staff counsel, has announced, "The accused will be presumed innocent until proved guilty...
...Didn't the Germans have to bomb Coventry to end the war...
...I said...
...Besides," she added, "we had to do it to end the war...
...Why," she said, "the Government...
...Justice Jackson, in addition to all the other atrocities he has committed, has added the atrocity of double jeopardy by announcing that after the Nuernberg Nazis are acquitted, they will be turned over to the individual nations the Nazis invaded...
...THE train pulled into my stop...
...Yamashita," I replied, "the fellow they call The Tiger of Malaya...
...Oh," she said, "but we didn't get a chance to vote on that...
...Oh, him," she said, "I certainly do...
...Whose death sentence...
...Oh," she said, "that...
...On my way to my house, I stopped in at a friend's...
...he said.' "Whose what...
...You're no more a Christian than I am...
...As Mr...
...Germans feel when, after a trial -which Anglo-Sarms have made a mockery of Anglo-Saxon law, the tead^rs of the Nazi government go before the firing squad shouting, "Deutschland uber alles...
...The Hanging Of The Tiger By MILTON MAYER IMET a lady on the suburban trainjast Friday, and, after we had exchanged the greetings of the holy season, I asked her if she thought Yamashita should be hanged, "Who...
...I'believe that people should be punished for what they have done...
...Their evil work is all done...
...I am getting up a petition," I said, "to appeal to Gen...
...Well," said my friend, "all I can say is that he should have taken a little time out from his generaling to find out what was going on among his troops...
...Oh, that was different," she said...
...Will you sign it...
...End it, or end it victoriously...
...I said...
...Look at us, glad, or contented, but most of all indifferent, that The Tiger of Malaya is going to be hanged...
...Isn't vengeance the Lord's ? And is it profitable to get even...
...and that he, after all, was a commanding general and a very busy one, trying to save the Philippines which the Japanese stole from the Americans without warning, and which the Americans had stolen from the Spaniards without warning, and which the Spaniards had stolen from the Filipinos without warning...
...SOI see that I can not do anything in this country for Yamashita...
...and that he didn't know they'd occurred, but he supposed they had, since they always do...
...So then we talked about the good books each of us had read lately, and it turned out that neither of us had read any...
...I said...
...And now get out of here...
...I tell you, my miserable friends, that I do not want any more wars, and here is our last chance to prevent the next one, and look at us...
...And we talked about where did the money all come from that the people were spending, and, for that matter, where j}id the people come from who were spending it...
...I like the way his wife talked, when she refused to ask Mrs...
...Oh, victoriously," she replied...
...For there is only the outward show of law in Nuernberg, and Manila, even as there used to be in Nazi People's Court in Berlin...
...I suppose that if I don't like it here I could go back where I came from, but I came from here...
...the lady said...
...And then we talked about Christmas shopping, and how much shoddy stuff people were buying, and how the manufacturers were holding everything off the market until after the first of the year, by which time, they figured, the public would be so mad at Chet Bowles that he would have to raise the ceilings...
...Did you follow the trial...
...And then the train approached my stop...
...I said...
...And is it even fun...
...That he committed...
...I don't really like Goering and Hess, because I suspect they were responsible for the cold-blooded commission of Nazi atrocities...
...she said...
...But," I said, retreating, but still facing him, "Ya...
...MacArthur to commute Yamashita's death sentence to life imprisonment, 30 days in the County Jail, or a scholarship to Harvard...
...We really wanted to end the war...
...Would you let people who committed atrocities get away with it...
...Well, / was against that, and so were you...
...But none of your fraudulent piety...
...I said...
...We didn't do that...
...But," I said, "I thought that the difference between us and the Japs is that we a»-e the government in this country...
...The War Department, I suppose, and all those people...
...Who was the Government...
...If what you want is a drink, come around later...
...I said...
...I said...
...And it is apparent that, unless Gen...
...Oh, rape, and looting, and burning," she said...
...MacArthur to intercede for him...
...And'how will th...
...mashita said that he didn't order or witness any atrocities...
...What atrocities...
...No," said the lady, "why...
...Yamashita," I repeated, "The Tiger of Malaya...
...Then how come you think he ought to be hanged...
...Whose...
...Byron Price reported after his special mission to Germany for President Truman, our policy of making the Germans feel guilty has failed...
...You get out of here," said my friend, "my supper's on the table...
...I said...
...Let's both try," I said...
...Oh, him," said my friend, "I should say not, and you get out of here with your crackpot Christianity...
...That the Japs committed," she said...
...MacArthur to ask Gen...
...Have you ever read Thackeray's Henry Esmond ?" I said...
...he said...
...Oh," I said, "Hiroshima and Nagasaki, for instance...
...Yamashita's," I said...
...Only the headlines," she said...
...But, in any case, what are we going to do about the atrocities that we committed ?" "Such as what ?" she said...
...And I have argued myself, as my Ma says, blue in the face, and I can not rna're any headway at all...
...No," she said, "I never read it...
...Who...
...Who did...
...I like the way beaten people talk, including those Germans who deny that^they ever were Nazis (thus proving that all Germans are liars), and those Germans who, like Goer-ing and, Hess, assert that they always were Nazis (thus proving that all Germans are Nazis...
...And haven't we all had just about enough blood to drink fcr one generation...
...But Japanese war criminals must be punished and humiliated so that they will go down in history as ordinary felons, of the lowest type...
...said my friend...
...Because it's full of rape, and looting, and burning," I said, "and it's hard to make out whether our glorious allies the English were worse than our glorious allies the French, or vice versa...
...I liked the way Yamashita talked...
...On account of all those atrocities," said the lady...
...No," I said, "I don't think I would, but I'm not sure...
...I said...
...WHAT good will it do us to shoot these atrociovs gezabos anyway...
...but I keep wondering who was responsible for the cold-blooded commission of Hiroshima and Nagasaki^ And I keep wondering what good it will do us to shoot these gezabos, at the expense of the sacred institution of law...
...You say," I said, "that Yamashita, The Tiger of Malaya, should be hanged because of all the atrocities that the Japs committed...
Vol. 9 • December 1945 • No. 50
