(See front cover')*
In the bitter cold of Manchuria great things were about to happen this week. Squads of police had searched every house in Changchung and confiscated 3,000 rifles and 150,000 rounds of ammunition. Carloads of grain arrived to be distributed to 30,000 poor families while arrangements were made to house 4,000 homeless free. A guard of 5,000 troops was set round the still incomplete Imperial City. In an open courtyard a few handpicked correspondents saw court dignitaries in dragon gowns and fur hats with jeweled buttons bow low to the ground before a stuffed dummy on a lacquered and jeweled ebony throne. Blinking, spectacled Henry Pu Yi was about to become Manchu Emperor of the new state of Ta Manchu Tikuo, until last week Manchukuo, until two years ago Manchuria.
All this had a profound effect on the various nations which so loudly deplored the Japanese invasion of Manchuria. France was expected to recognize Ta Manchu Tikuo, was offering Japan a 15-year credit for locomotives, rails, other equipment for the South Manchuria Railway. Germany longed to do likewise, but refrained from a definite commitment until the Nazi Government could decide whether it would make more money by recognizing Ta Manchu Tikuo than it would lose by insulting the Nationalist Government of China. Even the U. S., most outspoken under the Hoover regime in its criticism of Japan's Manchurian grab, seemed ready for a change of heart last week. Henry Lewis Stimson had published manifestoes and baldly announced that under no condition would the U. S. recognize Manchukuo because it had been set up by force of arms in violation of the Kellogg-Briand Peace Pact. President Roosevelt was not so sure. Last week he announced at a press conference that the question of recognition following the enthronement of Henry Pu Yi was much too delicate to be mentioned at all.
Only 28 years old, Henry Pu Yi is no stranger to thrones. Twice before has he been proclaimed Emperor of China. The first time was when he was two years old. In 1908 that crafty old mummy the Empress Dowager Tzu Hsi, who had ruled China since 1861, felt that she had not long to live. A prisoner on an island in the Imperial City was her nephew, the 37-year-old Emperor Kuang Hsu whose offense had been to attempt to modernize China and rid it of the burden of its old mandarins by the device of asking them all to commit suicide. On Nov. 14, 1908 two of the Old Empress's guards are said to have broken into Kuang Hsu's apartments and strangled him. As his successor the old lady had picked Pu Yi, the chubby little son of her nephew Prince Chun.
While the old lady watched, Little Pu Yi was robed in imperial yellow and placed on the dragon throne as the Emperor Hsuan Tung. Next day the Dowager Empress died suddenly. Prince Chun became Regent and the Emperor Hsuan Tung went back to his nursery. At the age of six, he emerged briefly to abdicate after the successful revolution of Canton's great Sun Yatsen. He continued to live in the Forbidden City, studying with his British tutor. Sir Reginald Johnston, a former customs official of Weihaiwei. and attempting to collect the magnificent salary of $4,000,000 that the Republican Government promised him but never paid.