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Show War Imminent j We do not wish to alarm but we wonder if the American Ameri-can people, or any considerable portion of them, realize how close this country may be to a war with Japan. Undoubtedly, Japanese sentiment has been stirred up considerably against America, because of the open condemnation con-demnation of our Department of State for the Japanese conduct in Manchuria and China. The concentration of the entire American naval fighting fight-ing force in the Pacific Ocean and its continuance there has not been merely a matter of training nor convenience conven-ience but is closely allied to the possibilities of foreign complications. The public does not know, and we merely surmise, but we believe, if the truth were known, it would be revealed re-vealed that a number of other preliminary steps for post war-time necessities in the Pacific area have also been attended to by American military authorities. Only a week or two ago public notice was drawn through the League of Nations to the enormous expenditure expen-diture of money by Japan to enlarge the harbors of certain cer-tain Pacific Islands, held by Japan under mandate, so that submarines up to three thousand ton displacement, could utilize these harbors. Japan claims that the harbor har-bor expenditures are to prepare for handling ships carrying car-rying sugar! Not many weeks ago the American Secretary of State journpyed from Washington to New York to hold a confidential con-fidential conversation with the President-elect. Recently President-elect Roosevelt stopped over in Washington for a confidential consultation with President Hoover. These are unusual and precedent-breaking occurences. Nothing less than momentous questions affecting American Amer-ican foreign policy, upon which a Republican president and a Democratic president-elect could act as Americans, Ameri-cans, can explain these unusual and vital consultations. Japan is desperate in ner determination to acquire Manchuria and a part of China. Her government, financially finan-cially weak and in danger, is entirely in the hands of the military leaders, who must justify their- excessive expenditure of money by foreign conquest or face revolution revo-lution at home. To show results these army and navy chieftains have dared the League of Nations to interfere; inter-fere; they will risk war with the United States, gambling gam-bling to win everything before losing all. These Japanese Japan-ese leaders might hesitate before a concerted action of several great nations but they will risk war, to be fought in their home territory, with any one great power. If war should come between America and Japan, our people will realize the lack of wisdom which at Wash ington in 1920 sacrificed battleships under construction which would have made the American Navy the strongest strong-est in the world and also abandoned any right to fortify our islands in the Western Pacific, which would afford our Navy invaluable bases for operation. We aihould realize the injustice of sending our ships and men across thousands of miles of water without having supplied them with a navy as strong as our international treaties provided for us to have. However, when war comes, these realizations will be too late. We will probably spend many times as many millions of dollars to prepare tardily than if we had prepared systematically in time |