(2 of 4)
The Japanese, always worried about saving "face," were left explaining that they had delivered not an ultimatum but only a polite warning. Bolder at its distance, the Nazi press in Berlin, carried a headline: U. S. Admiral Is Agitator. The British, cornered at every turn in China, frankly admired the Admiral's quick, firm action. They might also admire the U. S. State Department. For months the Japanese have practiced the clever dodge of blaming any international scrape they got into in China on the military people on the spot. The U. S. has adopted the stalemate expedient of letting its military people on the spot take independent counteraction. Ever since the Chinese-Japanese War started Admiral Yarnell, tall, thin lowan, has had a free hand from Washington in dealing with emergencies. The Admiral has thus won several quarrels with the Japanese, and has probably saved U. S. citizens in China some of the humiliation and indignities that Britons have undergone. In answering so effectively Japan's ultimatum last week, the U. S. Admiral also notified Japanese authorities at Shanghai and the commander-in-chief of the Japanese Fleet in China, Vice-Admiral Koshiro Oikawa, that U. S. ships would go wherever U. S. lives or property were endangered.
Tientsin. Having backed down at Swatow, the Japanese military at Tientsin, where they claimed the British were harboring anti-Japanese terrorists (TIME, June 26), became ever bolder. Live wire encircled the British and French Concessions, had by week's end killed a cat and a coolie. As food got scarcer, 1,500 Britons within the area realized that for all practical purposes they were imprisoned. Those who tried to get in or out were stripped, searched, cuffed. The colony settled down to make the best of the situation. Unable to go to the British Country Club, outside the Concession, they frequented the Tientsin Club within the area. Whereas formerly only men were admitted there, women were now welcomed for the duration of "hostilities." Britons still dressed for dinner, and they played what cricket and polo they could.