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STATEMENT OF MR. FREDERICK MCCORMICK IN REGARD TO SHANTUNG.
SANTA MONICA, CALIF., August 29, 1919.

Senator LODGE and the COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS:

In 1905 America mediated between Russia and Japan to end a war over China and Korea, and brought about the Portsmouth treaty of peace.

Immediately, Japan undertook destruction of a policy and place in the world which gave us the power of such far-reaching decision in what so vitally affected her.

In the decision Japan lost claims for indemnity and exacted secret terms from Russia by which she acquired joint claims of administration in Manchuria, This opened to her easy expansion into, and conquest of China, and gave her a policy and doctrine of special right vitally opposed to our own. Our own was the only thing in the way. It was the doctrine of the open door formulated by John Hay. It expressed the safe international position of China, and the future of America as head and front of Western civilization moving westward and sustaining for Western civilization the impact of Asiatic in the Pacific.

This doctrine having been accepted by Europe, Japan began her work of destroying it by undermining its adherents, and bringing them to her side.

England was Japan's ally in East Asia, and France and Russia became allies in Europe.

England then reached an understanding with Russia, and by 1908 all treaties with, and about China, though containing the formula which safeguarded China and made our place in the world had failed and were powerless to give peace and safety to China and protection to rights and interests of others. Thereby it became necessary to bring the situation of our policy before the world.

England and France appeared to misunderstand our aim, and at first resented our summons which was contained in a demand in 1909, to England, France, and Germany, to restore rights which they had seized from us in writing the Hukuang loan. But our course was in keeping with their pledges to support our policy for the peace and safety of China, and we were able with their renewed help, to create a base from which to resist the dissolution and destruction of our policy and of the safeguards to China, set up by Japan. Russia was the first to capitulate to Japan. Her position was the weakest because she had been vanquished in war with Japan, who joined and threatened her borders. Intimidated by Japan, she gave a nominal pledge recognizing community of Russia's hitherto exclusive rights in Manchuria, with Japan. Thus Japan was able to claim right of administration in Manchuria. It gave her a share of sovereign power there granted by China to Russia in the secret Article VI of the Chinese Eastern Railway convention of 1896.

Japan then foiled us in measures to neutralize railways in Manchuria, and Russia, still further intimidated, signed with Japan a predatory pact to maintain the status quo of aggression which we were trying to supplant with justice under the open door doctrine. It opposed and revised the Portsmouth treaty, and Japan moved into inner Mongolia.

Our efforts to restore China's full administrative power and sovereignty and protect her territorial integrity and rights of all, went on parallel with Japan's efforts at destruction. It was 1910, and in her agreement with Russia, Japan selected for its consummation the calendar date of July 4.

America employed heroic and praiseworthy means to retain the support of the European powers to our policy which they had adhered to by written pledge for at least 10 years. England and France accepted our measures. We united the great powers behind the Hukuang, Manchurian, and currency loans for China's industrial development and reform. And August, 1912, Russia and Japan joined in the currency and reorganization loan, which made it the six-power loan.

Our responsibilities in our defense against Asia and Europe in the Pacific, and in the defense of China and Asiatic civilization, were met in these plans and acts. They were successful, and the powers of Europe, which were willing to continue their adherence to them, as now exemplified in the six-power loan, only waited to see whether we were sincere and earnest in order to decide between us and Japan.

139027°-S. Doc. 106, 66-1-69

March 18, 1913, the President withdraw from these responsibilities, and from responsibility to the great powers and to China in what we had done, by re pudiating the six-power loan which again had placed the world on common ground respecting China.

On receiving this rebuff, the European powers went over to Japan. The arbitrament of the world's most vital affairs was balanced in Manchuria. The alignment of the powers in the World War had been made in China and the Pacific area. The action of the President confirmed them in their alignment. Japan's conquest of the European powers and winning of them to her side was completed.

In three years the European powers which had adhered to a position which we had defended for 129 years, and to which they had been pledged in writing for 12 years, had awarded Shantung and the German North Pacific possessions to Japan, not troubling to inform us of the fact. It was in sequence to events planned by Japan and had been deprecated by English, French, German, and Russian statesmen who desired to support our position instead of that of Japan. It was a conquest over America, it remains so, and the President asks us to ratify it.

As it existed at the beginning of 1913, our reconstructed position in China and the Pacific to meet the movement set up by Japan because of the Portsmouth Treaty was destroyed by the President. War ensued, with demoralization in China through lack of foreign money and through China being obliged to quadruple her borrowings from Japan. And after four years of struggle by China, and the most bitter failure and disappointment, our envoy to China, on his own initiative, but approved by the Government, sent a note of friendly counsel to China in her despair. It was in accord with immemorial right and intercourse with China antedating Japan's civilized relations with China and her civilized place in the world by nearly 100 years. Japan openly resented the action and protested on the ground of interference in her domain. Open conflict was thereby established by Japan which she, backed by her allies,had kept hidden, even since the President repudiated the six-power loan which had united us.

Two interpretations of the act of our envoy to China exist: One American, one Japanese. They are directly opposed. They established Japan in the cours adoptd aftr the Prsident's repudiation of the six-power loan, namely, in disputing whatever we do in defense of the position against which aJpan opposes her own. And Japan followed her protest with a special mission to America under Ishii to set up her interpretation before her European allies against our own.

Japan did this last in the Ishii-Lansing notes, and to such satisfaction that those allies, after awarding to Japan Shantung and the German North Pacific possessions, confirmed it in their drafts of the peace treaty 18 months later. Japan's exertions stirred the counsels of the President, which took action intended to meet the consequences of what our envoy to China had done. was taken on the expressed grounds that "unless we are prepared to oppose Japan, and go on antagonizing her, we must do something constructive." It had become our policy to try and placate Japan by putting it that way instead of facing the truth.

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The reasons given for our action were that "we had to decide whether we would be China's cat's-paw, or get on with Japan."

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"We" decided to get on with Japan." The moral sanction for what was about to be done, forming the principle on which the Ishii-Lansing notes were executed by us, was that China was corrupt and irresponsible," and was festering mass of humanity."

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The friendly note of our envoy was handed to China June, 1917. Japan immediately brought up the question of sending Ishii, and his mission was arranged through our embassy in Tokio. As I understand that arrangement, what was to be done was determined in advance. All conversations that were to take place in Washington after Ishii's arrival there were written out. It was decided in advance that the real object of the mission, which was to get recognition from us of Japan's special interests in China, would not be discussed. If it came up the answer to Japan's expectations would be no.

The Department of State confirmed this decision to our embassy in Tokio. Thereupon Ishii stated to our embassy that he would not expect to get recognition of Japan's special interests in China, and the embassy cabled this renunciation to the Department of State.

Ishii started for Washington and Mr. Morris was invested in Washington as our ambassador to Japan. Morris participated at Washington in the discussions and completion of the coming Ishii-Lansing notes, while Ishii was enroute from Japan. The notes were signed while he was enroute to Tokio and he did not know what they meant until after he had reached Tokio. His knowledge gained in Washington differed diametrically from the knowledge of Europe and east Asia, including our embassy in Tokio which held a conference when it received the notes by cable, to determine what they meant. The conference lasted all night and broke down in total disagreement, Morris on one side and the embassy staff on the other. A decision as to what explanation should be made to the public never was arrived at. After two days Lansing's interpretation came and saved the embassy from having to equivocate about it.

The notes meant the opposite of what our Government, in instructing Morris, said they meant. They achieved the opposite of what our Government purposed. America was discredited before China and the allies. And Japan and America again went on record with interpretations which are diametrically opposed.

The President then undertook personal management at the peace conference of these affairs, whereupon England and France wrote out for Japan their final drafts of the award to Japan of Shantung and the German North Pacific possessions. The President then signed this award, and England, and France, with the co-operation of Italy and the other allies, handed Japan the award with our signature on it. It was the authors of the repudiation of the reconstructive measures in China, and the framers for Ishii in the terms of Japan, of the Lansing notes, who signed this award.

Having taken action on the decision not to be the catspaw of China, we made ourselves the tool of Japan, and through Japan the tool of England, France and the allies.

England and France did not want to be so. In 1913 they had said they were sorry to lose us from the confidence and the counsels of the powers, especially England, whose statesmen said she desired to work with us.

Thus Japan was able in 14 years to destroy our diplomacy. It had been defended respecting China and the Pacific area since 1784. But in 1913 the President opened the way for Japan to finally accomplish its destruction, in these words repudiating the Six-Power Loan, namely:

"The conditions of the loan seem to us to touch very nearly the administrative independence of China itself; and the administration does not feel that it ought, even by implication, to be party to those conditions. The responsibility might go the length of forcible interference in the financial and even the political affairs of that great oriental state. The responsibility is obnoxious to the principles upon which the Government of our people rests." Neither at the time of this statement, nor at any time in our history had the conditions of China's position or intercourse with her, rested on the principles on which the Government of our people rests. And they rested on not less than 46 treaties fixing China's position and fate as we had written them in accordance with the demands of Europe and the allies of the time, since at least 1784, and could not be affected except for evil by this act. China's position in the world was first explicitly and definitely fixed by the American treaty of 1844. The terms of this treaty were the best obtainable at the time, but their supreme law was extraterritoriality under which China became deprived of independence in everything connected with foreign intercourse. As these terms were the terms of all nations and were copied and expanded in all treaties and conventions, this made China's place that of a prisoner whose indefinite period of sentence we had formulated.

After 55 years John Hay reformulated the terms of China's place so as to secure to her a way to emerge from her prison. All nations accepted the formula, which was the open-door doctrine, and wrote it in subsequent treaties and conventions respecting China.

We thus raised into international being a policy consciously and unconsciously pursued and practiced by us in principle since 1784, and recognized in writing by the world since 1899-1900. It was thus our first great foreign doctrine, and in this sense is older than the Monroe doctrine. The circumstances of its origin, and the civilization and situation to which it refers are older, and the problem to which it refers is older.

In 1909 we devised new formulas to safeguard China's way out of her prison and to secure her escape from the sentence which we had written.

They were accepted by the powers. But in the work of six years, regardless of the aversion the President expressed to even forcible interference in China's affairs, he signed in the Shantung award, the rending of China and destruction of all we had done to preserve our position.

Up to 1913 the powers were with us. When the President rebuffed those powers by repudiating the instrument by which they had again finally joined with us, he sent new envoys to represent us in China and Japan.

Our envoy to Tokio was Mr. Guthrie. He reached there the middle of the year and began the search for a book that would explain the questions of the region which was the strangest he had ever seen. He looked for "a small book, not a large one," because, as he continued, he was "too old to read a large one."

Four years later he died while still searching for that book, and his body was tenderly borne back to us by a people which venerated his personal greatness, as well as the simplicity and innocence which had made him the unconscious dupe of such a tragic gaucherie.

Our envoy to China was Mr. Reinsch. After six years of cross purposes, blunders which never have been exposed because too disgraceful to investigate during a state of war; and after insufferable insult and humiliation, failure, defeat, and madness, he has resigned.

Both these men were appointed after the act by which our destructive policy became known, and they went on fools' errands. Their survivor is Ambassador Morris, at Tokio, on whom all East Asia, including China, Japan, Korea, and Siberia, is saddled, and who ranges from the Pacific to Central Asia and Europe. Mr. Guthrie left him no book, and he has been for two years heroically struggling under the misunderstanding with which the Government blinded him when he set out from Washington. He, too, is overwhelmed with the defeat and is trying to extricate himself from the madness and ruin.

The only refuge for a country which has enacted such a debacle as I have described, and intends to complete it by compelling the ratification of that debacle by its great Senate, is a league of other nations who can manage its affairs better than it can manage them. If in one single instance, the Shantung award, the peace treaty is ratified by the Senate of the United States, two principal things will result: First will come our elimination from East Asia through abandonment of our place in the world for an elusive status promised us, and second, there will take place the rending of the vast race unit which is the body of Asiatic civilization, and the setting of it adrift in the Pacific area and the world, engined by Japan.

Our position in the world differs from that of the rest of civilization. It is comparable only to the position which, as pretender to leadership of an opposing civilization, Japan, marshalling Europe against us, usurps and holds by force. Therefore we cannot enter the peace treaty, in my opinion, or the league of nations, on the same terms as the powers of Europe. To do so would destroy our place in the world. We have to enter them, if at all, on terms that will defend us as the leader and the head and front of western civilization moving across the Pacific Ocean, and defend all interests intrusted to us by western civilization and by Asiatic civilization, of which China is the body.

The considerations which I have respectfully submitted concern only our international entity and what we are in the world by circumstances over which we have no control, which, if surrendered, would complete the work of destruction which Japan openly began, with every confidence of success, in 1905. The head of the column of western civilization, receiving the impact and hitherto sustaining the pressure of aggressive and predatory Asiatic civilization, would be crushed. And there would be no occasion to invoice our physical assets in East Asia gone down, or of our moral and cultural influences which are greater than those of any other power. After the destruction of our moral position, there is but one end. And in it civilization will share.

The CHAIRMAN. We will adjourn at this point until to-morrow. (Thereupon, at 12 o'clock noon, the committee adjourned until 10 o'clock a. m., Thursday, September 4, 1919.)

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 4, 1919.

UNITED STATES SENATE, COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS, Washington, D. C.

The committee met pursuant to adjournment, at 10 o'clock a. m., in room 426, Senate Office Building, Senator Henry Cabot Lodge presiding.

Present: Senators Lodge (chairman), Brandegee, Knox, Harding, Moses, Swanson, and Pomerene.

There appeared before the committee the following delegation representing the Jugo-Slav Republican Alliance of the United States: Mr. Etbin Kristan, chairman; Mr. Frank Kerze, Mr. Philip Godina, Mr. Lazarovich-Hrebelianovich, Mr. R. F. Hlacha, Mr. Josif Michailovitch, and A. H. Skubic, secretary.

The CHAIRMAN. Gentlemen, our time is limited. I had hoped that you would get here to begin at 10 o'clock, but we can give you from now until 12 o'clock. You must divide the time between yourselves as you think best.

STATEMENT OF MR. ETBIN KRISTAN, OF CHICAGO, ILL.

Senator BRANDEGEE. Let me ask you, have you arranged now about the division of your time? How long do you want to talk? Mr. KRISTAN. It will take about 20 minutes.

The CHAIRMAN. Very well; proceed.

Mr. KRISTAN. Gentlemen, the delegation of the Jugo-Slav Republican Alliance takes the liberty to express its deep gratitude for the privilege of a hearing before this honorable body, and for the permission to lay before it the aspirations of the Jugo-Slavs regarding the regulation of the boundaries of this new State, and based upon, what we consider, the right of our race.

Gentlemen, the Jugo-Slav State, called also the State of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes is a new formation and a product of this great war which has removed many obstacles obstructing the unification of the southern Slavs. The idea of unity lived in their souls for ages, and, long before this war, great men of our Nation sacrificed their best for the promotion of this idea, the realization of which is the inevitable condition for our existence and for a more successful progress.

The greatest barrier to the unification of the Jugo-Slavs was the former Austro-Hungarian monarchy, under whose democratic rule the majority of all the three branches of Jugo-Slavs was subdued, and whose policy tended to subject under her rule the remaining inde

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