The Rising Sun: The Decline and Fall of the Japanese Empire, 1936-1945

by John Toland

“Crush the Chinese in three months and they will sue for peace,” War Minister Sugiyama predicted. As city after city fell, patriotic fervor swept through Japan, but almost the entire Western world condemned Japan’s aggression, and even Germany (because she feared for her interests in China) was critical. China appealed to the League of Nations, and while the world awaited its report, a bold attack came from another quarter. On October 5, 1937, President Franklin D. Roosevelt made a forceful speech in Chicago condemning all aggressors and equating the Japanese, by inference, with the Nazis and Fascists.a “When an epidemic of physical disease starts to spread, the community approves and joins in a quarantine of the patients in order to protect the health of the community,” he said and explained that war was a contagion, whether declared or undeclared. “We are adopting such measures as will minimize our risk of involvement, but we cannot have complete protection in a world of disorder in which confidence and security have broken down.” There was no mistaking Roosevelt’s meaning when on the following day, after the League of Nations had censured Japan, the United States, although not a member, quickly concurred.