711.94/1939
Remarks by the Ambassador in Japan (Grew) at the America-Japan Society Luncheon at Tokyo, December 19, 1940
In once more expressing to His Excellency the Foreign Minister the appreciation of the Society of his giving of his valuable time to join us today, I wish to thank the Minister on behalf of us all for his enlightening address. My own comments on his address will be restricted to a minimum.
His Excellency has brought out certain points with which we must all agree, especially with Mr. Matsuoka’s expressed desire for peace, his appeal for calm judgment and his good wishes for the success of Admiral Nomura’s mission. Other points brought out were of a controversial nature.
I cannot deal severally with those points today. Yet with all due respect I must relieve the Minister of his misapprehension that the interest of the American people in China is largely sentimental. I am particularly glad to take note of the Minister’s statement that in the Japanese program the door is to be shut nowhere and to no one and that this program envisages no conquest, no oppression, no exploitation.
The Minister has lived long enough in the United States to know that the American people are fundamentally peace-minded and furthermore that they stand for justice and equity. He also knows that the American people are firmly determined on certain matters among which on the one hand are their obligations and on the [Page 130] other hand their rights. Their profoundest wish is to see peace, prosperity, security, stability and happiness assured to all nations.
In the present state of world affairs we must inevitably realize that what counts in international relationships today, and what we all have to face in formulating our several opinions, is the concrete evidence of facts and actions, regardless of the persuasive garb in which such facts and actions may be dressed.
Let us say of nations as of men: “By their fruits ye shall know them.”